Negaduck Y1: Queen of the Negaverse
by VAPX007
Summary: An older Negaduck fakes his own death to escape from Hooter and Bushroot in the Negaverse. He ends up in a pink world where the Negaverse is a script and all the people just actors. Before he can escape and get back home to his 17 yr old daughter, Negaduck has to unravel the very fabric of the so-called reality around him. M-Rated for Let's Play content. *Complete* Happy New Year!
1. Negaduck Oh Negaduck

_Disclaimer: _**Negaduck ****owns himself_. _**_Disney owns Darkwing Duck. Barcode VAPX007 has no keepies. Especially this cold. Get lost, Sneezey! I've done my sick days with you and now I've got to go to work!_

_A/n: Standard in-game violence. Minor cursing, vampires, ghosts, mystery, and various subtle references to a__post-apocalyptic world. Don't worry; we'll get through it because we are_Negaduck_. A little older, a little more chilled, but Negaduck nonetheless._

_A/n: Since I wrote this short 20k story with a fever in my head and a chainsaw down my throat it's safe to say that, whatever else it is, it's M-Rated. Enjoy the gratuity!_

_A/n: Script for AnonymousZGirl. The rest for gratuitous Negaduck screen time._

* * *

**QUEEN OF THE NEGAVERSE**

* * *

**"Negaduck Oh Negaduck"**

* * *

Negaduck in his gold jacket, black fedora and red-lined cape tore around the industrial street corner and fell back heavily against the brickwork, breathing heavily. "When did this become a game with me as the flaming mouse?" He searched his memory. "Gosalyn's seventeenth birthday," the landmark answer popped into his head, "I've been losing ground ever since."

Negaduck threaded his way around the works factory, planting remote detonator charges as he cased the joint. On the storage floor, meat and bones were strung up alike and he wasn't planning to join them.

* * *

"My dearest Negaduck." James G Hooter called in endearment.

Negaduck felt his blood freeze hearing the S.H.U.S.H. Director's voice. He refused to turn. "Aren't you a bit old to be chasing game?" He asked, "Where's your minions?"  
The vampire laughed, "Love chasing, love toying, love playing, oh, Negaduck, love every tasty moment."

Seeing a green figure appearing at the other end of the corridor they were in, Negaduck stiffened. Bushroot's arrival signalled that Negaduck had planted his last detonator. Addressing Hooter he thumbed back to the mad half-plant. "It looks like the competition has turned up, Hooter."

"Not at all." Bushroot smiled darkly at him. "You see, I don't drink blood."

Negaduck edged back to the wall of carcasses behind him, darting looks between his pursuers. "You know there's nothing good about either of you."  
"True." Bushroot added with a more bitter tone. "I keep trying but always seem to fail at it."

Negaduck looked over at Hooter, "And you?"  
"Me?" The S.H.U.S.H. Director smiled, "I'm so dreadfully hungry right now." Hooter stated pleasantly.  
Negaduck ducked and rolled just as Hooter lunged at him. "Aren't you two forgetting something?"  
"No." Bushroot answered.  
"Probably; I've picked up quite a lot of information across the years." Hooter accepted.

"You know this meat factory we're in?" Negaduck straightened back to a stand and grasped the remote control detonator from his vest pocket. "What if it were to explode in say ... now?" He pressed the button.

Hooter and Bushroot looked at each other and Negaduck laughed as the explosions started and grew closer. His two hunters vanished from his view as the flames started shooting towards him.

"Losers." Negaduck pressed the button for the trans-dimensional portal and jumped through, escaping the flames for the psychedelic colours of the wormhole.

* * *

Negaduck fell heavily onto warm hard pavement. The sun blazed down on him. The smog was a little thin and he decided since his bill was still on and his tail feathers only a little singed that this was a successful porting trip. He sat up and looked around. The world he was in had a sort of pink tinge to it. Negaduck checked his mobile port unit.

"Universe six echo alpha." He stood up and reviewed the pinkish calm of the industrial-looking suburb. "I'm in the right place."

"Oi, buddy, move it or lose it. No loitering, come on shake your tail feathers are you in or out?"  
Negaduck slowly turned around to see the guard sitting in the booth by the open iron gates. "Do you know who I am?"  
The guard looked over at his screen hidden beside the window. "Yeah; obituaries say you've had your last episode. Go on in Negaduck, unless you're too scared."

Negaduck glared at the guard with his security guard hat on and reached back behind his cape for his chainsaw.

It wasn't there.

Mildly distracted by this infuriating inconvenience, Negaduck stepped towards the open gates; "I'll kill you later." He told the guard and let curiosity lead him inside the lot.

* * *

The crushed brownish pink dust of the main drive led on to various brownish pink buildings to the left and right like parcel post packages. The exception was the building far off to the back of the lot where Negaduck could make out a double storey building with dark glossy windows.

"Thanking you all kindly for coming," Herb Muddlefoot's voice called out. Negaduck turned down a side drive to see a crowd by an open door and a glimpse of a Darkverse version of Herb Muddlefoot. "We have the positions filled now so you can all go on home."

Negaduck strode towards the disbursing crowd. They were a motley bunch, real rag tag and they all passed him by with dejection on their faces. "I'm beginning to warm to this place." He grinned after them and slouched on to reopen the door that Herb had closed.

Negaduck found the rotund man at a wooden table packing up folders and papers with two dogettes, neither of which Negaduck recognised. He stepped up to the end of the table and declared his presence.

"I am Negaduck!" He demanded their attention.

The pencil pushers glanced at each other.

"You're hired." Herb said with a jovial smile. "We start shooting at nine tomorrow morning. I'm Bill; this is Sarah, that's Jane."

Negaduck stopped at the idea of someone inviting him in for gunplay. "That sounds like fun." Negaduck frowned, "What's with all the paperwork?"  
"This is a movie; there's got to be a bit of paperwork or else nobody'd know what they were doing." Bill the Herb Muddlefoot look-alike chuckled back at him. "It's called 'Queen of the Negaverse'. And we'd like you on set as our ethnic advisor."

"If anything is too cheesy and camp we want you to tell us to fix it." One of the dogettes, the one with strawberry blonde hair, Sarah, said.  
"That is, other than the plot itself. We really can't help that." The brown hair, Jane, said.

"I see." Negaduck snatched Bill's copy of the script. "Anybody got a match? I seem to have lost mine."  
"Negaduck." Jane stated, "With your help we can make this a proper Negaverse blockbuster movie."

Negaduck rolled up the script and pointed it at Sarah, "Alright, let's take a more practical approach. Where does the script editor live and has anybody found a match yet?"

"Negaduck, you don't have to take the job as ethnic advisor."  
Negaduck glared at Jane, "Am I in this script?"  
"No," she answered, "Because the story takes place after your death."  
Negaduck mused over that. "So, this way I can still inflict major trauma even though I'm technically dead?"

"Yes," Jane answered, "Just not the major plot points."

Negaduck unrolled the script and scowled at the title on the curled cover that read 'Queen of the Negaverse'. "What about the title?"  
"It's workable." Jane stated, "But it's the best one so far."  
"Here." Sarah threw him a set of keys. "Trailer ten. If you don't like it blow it up and find some other place to do your own thing." The three moviemakers turned and walked off in opposite directions, leaving Negaduck with a script of 'Queen of the Negaverse' and the keys to trailer ten.

"I need to think this out." Negaduck clenched the keys in his fist and went to find the trailer Sarah had supplied him.

* * *

Negaduck dropped the keys and script onto the table of the trailer along with his hat and then he landed himself on the double bed in the back. "That blasted Bushroot and Hooter." He scowled, "I am going to even this score with them." He hoped they thought he hadn't gotten away. It would give him a surprise advantage when he struck back.

But how was he to strike back? And where in the multi-verse was he right now? Negaduck got up and fetched the script.

"Screenplay by Joan Cracknell of Fireworks studios." Negaduck read the unfamiliar name and yawned. "I'm whacked." He tossed the script back lazily onto the table, sank back on the bed, and closed his eyes.


	2. Fireworks Studios

**Fireworks Studios**

* * *

The wafting smell of fresh coffee, hash browns and buttered raisin toast woke Negaduck up. Hunting for the source of the hunger driving scent, he left the trailer and shortly located the breakfast setup.

Seeing Hooter and Bushroot sitting at a table sipping coffee made Negaduck freeze for a moment. When last he'd seen of this duo they had ganged up to kill him.

"That's some excellent makeup work." Hooter told Bushroot.  
"You're changing the subject." Bushroot frowned at his breakfast companion. "And if you like it you should really be telling Len and Barbara. They're the ones doing the work for three hours. All I have to do is sit still for that long."  
"I've never really had many three hour makeup sessions. I find it is worth it, though."  
"It's like I don't feel quite myself anymore when I look in the mirror."  
"Aha!" Hooter stated enthusiastically, "Then you are halfway to your role already!"

At this stage in their drivelling conversation, Negaduck decided that in this universe these two guys were off the threat list and on the annoying bystander list instead. No longer concerned for his health in their presence, Negaduck eased himself to the food carts and helped himself.

"Meanwhile, Lenora." Bushroot redirected the conversation.  
"Oh, you're really being too hard. You haven't even gotten to know her yet."  
"Gotten to ..." Bushroot sat back in his chair and shook his head. His purple petals fluttered freely about with the motion. "I noticed you have a long scene with her today. Let's see you handle it."

"You can't be fed up with someone before you've even started shooting."  
"I'm not fed up; I'm mystified." Bushroot finished his coffee and stood up. "Excuse me, I think I hear my makeup team calling me and I'm in the first scene."

Negaduck sat down a few tables away from the actor that looked like Hooter from his Negaverse. There was something messed up with this picture. The Hooter from his universe was a strictly night-time vampire looking in his late twenties. In any other universe, Hooter was an elderly owl who liked sipping coffee in broad daylight. Here this Hooter sat looking in his late twenties in broad daylight sipping coffee and reading his script.

"No, really?" Hooter muttered to himself and pulled out a journal book from his back pocket. "Mystified." He wrote as he repeated the word. "That's a big word for such a young actor."

Shortly an exact duplicate of Negaduck's Negaverse Launchpad lumbered over to the drinks cart. He made two cups of coffee and placed them on a table near Hooter and sat down.

Hooter chuckled, "Remarkable the sparks of animosity between us like life mirroring art; or you might sit at my table instead."  
Launchpad swigged one of the coffees in front of him. "No, I'm usually standoffish in the morning."  
Hooter laughed again. "You're not a method actor?"  
"No, I'm like this normally."  
Hooter laughed again.

Launchpad paused in his coffee swigging and eyed Hooter with some caution. "You may want to lay off the sugar for a while."  
The youthful Hooter laughed again, "No, I'm like this normally." He grew more serious. "It's an interesting thing, this character I'm playing." He picked up his script. "He has almost a bipolar nature. Hooter is young and superficial one moment and wise and deathly serious the next."

Negaduck groaned and rolled his eyes. "I've got to find me a new chainsaw."

The blonde-haired doggette from yesterday strolled between the breakfast tables. "Scene one shooting is commencing in ten minutes on sound stage twenty, everyone," she advised. "Has Lenora been this way?"  
"I'm afraid not, Sarah." Hooter shook his head, reminding Negaduck of what her name was. "Reginald's talked with her though."

"That must have been in makeup. Perhaps she's gone back there instead of to the sound stage."

* * *

Negaduck finished his breakfast and followed behind Hooter and Launchpad onto the soundstage.

"Lenora, you can go on the set now, it's your first scene." He heard Bushroot saying.

Moving closer, Negaduck could see a perfect copy of his seventeen-year-old ward Gosalyn in one of her favourite white dresses standing facing Bushroot beside a camera stand.

"Bluebirds and whistling fish are transposed and overdue," Lenora answered Bushroot. She then went to sit on the throne in the set beneath the long-range microphones. Her mild expression fell into a sad and lost expression, studying the edge of the red carpet before her. Behind her the walls were a pink shade of white, the three windows trimmed with gold to match the floor tiles and there was a red sheet of something blocking the view of the skyline outside.

"And action."

_Gosalyn's sad, lost expression went into a glassy eyed stare._

_Bushroot gently trod up the length of the carpet towards her. "Gosalyn."_  
_Gosalyn's eyes dragged up away from the red fabric to Bushroot's face. "Go away. I'm not happy with you."_  
_Bushroot hesitated for a moment, "If that's what you want." He turned away and headed back down the red carpet._

"Cut, let's try that again." Herb's voice called out.

Negaduck jerked around and glared at Herb, or Bill. "Don't you think this is slow enough already?"

Bill, in his watermelon printed green shirt, shrugged back at him. "Yes, but that's life, you know," Bill chuckled, "A dentist chair in every corner and locks on all the doors. You get used to it after a while, or you go mad." He snorted in derision, "Or both. Take your pick."

"Except that it's me that's getting tortured!" Negaduck complained. "If I walk away and come back in two hours time will they be doing the same thing?"  
"Yeah, probably. I've asked the boss about getting you that match. I asked her for a whole matchbox for you first thing this morning as a matter of fact. She say's there's a line at the supermarket but she's working on it." Bill settled back in his chair. "Can we have Hooter in position now, please?"

"I have to wait for a box of-what is this?" Negaduck stared at Herb. The jovial giant seemed as unflappable as he was in any other universe.

_"You do know you can't go on with this charade for much longer." Hooter spoke up from behind Gosalyn's chair and stepped out to face her.__  
_"Go away!" Gosalyn stated in annoyance, "I'm not happy with you either! You were supposed to be my friends and instead you killed my father."_  
_"I'm not going away until you do something about yourself." Hooter countered. "How long do you think you can get away with pretending that Negaduck is still alive?"__

_Gosalyn stood up. "I've still got the Ramrod!" She declared.__  
_"But is it your inclination to use it?" Hooter pressed her, "What upon? Will you unleash it on Bird Cage Apartments? Are you to get even with Doctor Bushroot for conspiring with me? And what of everyone else in that building? Will you revenge your father on them also?"__

_"Well... no ... I ..." Gosalyn's expression went from confusion to upset._

Through all the retakes Negaduck sat, trying to figure out where the sick feeling in his gut was coming from about all this. Right now in the Negaverse, Gosalyn and the others really would be thinking he was dead. While this 'acting off a script' was all excruciatingly slow, it did seem to have a ring of truth to it. This was probably how they'd be reacting to his death. What the heck was the deal with this pink universe?

_"Launchpad, make him go away and leave me alone!" Gosalyn cried out.__  
_Launchpad crossed from the other side of the room to get only three steps in front of Hooter and stop. "Uch, I ... can't move."_  
_Hooter casually walked around Launchpad as he stayed as though stuck in one place, "You see, Gosalyn, my sweet, how little power you in fact do have."__

"Oh, no." Negaduck groaned. It wasn't enough that he had to watch it five times; it also had to be a pathetic show as well. "Kill me; this can't be happening."

"Cut! Great work everyone; let's break for lunch." Bill declared.

* * *

The morning had finally finished crawling by getting take after take in. Watching the last scene with the actors trying to play like there were vampire powers in effect made Negaduck's head hurt. It made him seriously wonder if maybe he hadn't make it out of the warehouse after all and this was instead his afterlife punishment. This whole pink tinged place needed burning down but Negaduck had to know what was happening to him before he could do that.

Negaduck reconsidered the buffet cart serving calamari, chips and herring salad. Surely, heaven would have more fluffy bunnies and if this was damnation then why didn't they let him keep his chainsaw? Was it some ghostly halfway house and were they playing a game of proof or dare? Whichever way it went, Negaduck had a strong feeling in his gut that something had gone amiss with his trans-dimensional trip. The world around him was just too pink.

If something had gone wrong, that meant he wasn't where he was aiming for. He wasn't in the Darkverse after all and these people were acting as if the Negaverse was nothing but fiction in between the covers of their script. They thought it was fiction but it wasn't fiction to him.

"You were very quiet this morning." Jane came up to him by the coffee machine, "I expected you to say she was crying too much."  
Negaduck glanced at Jane. "Nah, that's her. She'd do that right down to the wimp out session. She did it in spades." Negaduck dropped the serving spoon back into the vat with a splatter, "She didn't need a single retake." He glared up accusingly at the tall brown-haired woman. Not that Jane could help it, but it was her universe so technically it was all her fault.

"What about the other actors?"  
Negaduck begrudged her an answer, "Sure, it looked like Launchpad was pretending when Hooter stuck him. That could've done with a retake."  
"We have to do that part with the computer." Jane discounted, "On this side of the camera we still rely on our imagination to fill in those gaps."  
"He had to stay stuck to the spot; where's the computer based stuff in that?" Negaduck rolled his eyes. "Geez, can't you even get your own reality right?"  
Jane twisted away from him, "Hey, Bill!" She called out and hurried off as though Negaduck had just televised some sort of newsflash.

A moment later, Negaduck realised he'd just volunteered the whole crew for another retake just when they'd thought they'd nailed the last of that scene. He chuckled with the sense of power over that.

* * *

The Gosalyn actress was getting herself some juice and Negaduck went to get some information out of her. "Hey what's your name when you're not on the set?"  
"Lenora." She answered, and then looked at her glass of juice, raising it to her eyes. "Sojourn of the twittering flapjacks."  
"What?" Negaduck blinked at her words. "You telling me you're a nut cake? But you were perfect on that set; a perfect Nega-Gosalyn."  
"Mario and Luigi eat out at Bangladesh." She curtseyed to him and turned away.

If Negaduck wasn't fiction, then who or what was this Lenora the loon?

"Negaduck," Negaduck turned around at Jane's voice, "Could you explain to us what the effect is that you're talking about?"  
"Oh, come on." Negaduck gritted, looking between Herb, Launchpad and Jane standing there, "Quit the horseplay and tell me what's really going on!"

They all blinked at him.

Negaduck rubbed his face, "The idea was that Hooter stopped him from moving, right? Well, when a vampire does that, their victim stops moving. Period. Hey, if the vampire is really touchy he could stop him from breathing altogether. Pfft. Death by vampire induced asphyxiation."

"Wow, great, let's try the take again. Positions-somebody-Jane, fetch Lenora."

* * *

Jane helped martial Lenora back onto the set and back to the throne. "Now, you just sit down there."

"I'm amazed she can do her lines. I mean; where does she come from?"

Negaduck looked over at the owner of the new voice. He was a tall rooster with an air of decorum to match his Queen's English accent. "Steelbeak?" Negaduck frowned up at him. "Well, you look like you in that ER outfit. Although what the heck happened to your Ducklyn accent?"  
Steelbeak smiled with a very normal beak, "I'm on in the next scene."

So he was an actor in this pink universe too, Negaduck accepted, meaning his beak could be just made up to look like he was from Negaduck's universe.

"Silence on the set, and action."

Negaduck eased over to Lenora's handbag and started rifling through the contents while the actors busily took and retook the last part of the scene. The bag had lipstick, a compact mirror and a hairbrush in it. Negaduck snapped open her purse, looked inside, and found one single ID card.

**Lenora Vanderworth****  
**Proof of Age 18+****

In both the Dark Duck universe and his, Gosalyn was seventeen and had a driver's license. His Gosalyn had been so keen on getting that license and Negaduck remembered the whole incident with great satisfaction because that was the day Gosalyn had openly declared him a much better teacher than that rule-for-every-occasion rodent.

**Home address: ****1 Ashdown Crescent**

Negaduck knew that in most St Canard universes, 1 Ashdown Crescent was a lunatic asylum. He closed Lenora's handbag and dumped it back on her seat. There really wasn't much more to Lenora other than what had driven her into a madhouse and who had volunteered her for this alleged movie.

Meanwhile on the set, Negaduck observed the story slowly moving forwards.

_Launchpad crossed from the other side of the room to get only three steps in front of Hooter. He stiffened, frozen to the spot. "Uch, I ... can't move."__  
_Hooter casually walked around Launchpad as he stayed as though something had him stuck there in place, "You see, Gosalyn, my sweet, how little power you in fact do have."__

_Gosalyn stood up. "Let him go, Director Hooter."__  
_"Why, my dear, when I have not yet made my point clear to you?"_  
_"I-I'll use the Ramrod."_  
_"On what building, my dear?" Hooter asked, "Bird Cage apartments? For really; I cannot think of any other building of any particular interest to me."_  
_"I'll use it on your place!" Gosalyn declared with emotional bluster._  
_"I rather think not since I live beneath the sewers."__

_Launchpad fell onto the carpet, gasping for air._

_"That is a futile threat upon me, dear Gosalyn, but could you really go through with it for another miscreant ... like me? Could you really defend yourself against another who seeks to do you harm, Gosalyn?"__  
_She frowned at him and turned her eyes on Launchpad. "Oh, Launchpad, are you alright?"_  
_"Yeah, I'm fine." Launchpad grunted, "Let me at him, I'll get him this time."__

_"No, it's okay, Launchpad." Gosalyn stepped down off the throne. She grabbed one of Negaduck's black capes hanging over the arm of the throne and hooked it over her shoulders. "Let's go out for a walk instead and he can stay here until he gets bored and leaves."_

_Left behind at the throne, Hooter watched the two receding down the carpet from his view, "You are vulnerable, Gosalyn. Are you going to at least think about that fact?"__  
_"Yes." Gosalyn turned for a moment to answer him, "But I don't need your help for how to solve it because I'm not happy with you."__

_"I don't care that you're unhappy with me." Hooter turned to look at the empty throne. "If you could just sit here in safety I wouldn't have a complaint at all."_

"Cut everyone, let's wrap that and head over to stage sixteen." The green shirted movie director declared in his friendly voice. "Bushroot, Hooter, you're off the clock for today."

Letting out a final exasperated sigh over all the retakes to get this far, Negaduck watched everyone obediently heading out like hypnotized zombies. He felt his temper flaring. The act of carnage making would be really therapeutic right about now.

"I need my chainsaw." He paused, "Where's that kid going now?"


	3. The Negaverse Hospital

_A/n: This story is a symptom of the flu._

* * *

**The ****Negaverse ****Hospital**

* * *

Sound stage sixteen turned out to be the interior reception of the Negaverse St Canard General Hospital. While Negaduck was all for letting those suffering die, he was also aware that if all the people died of some sort of plague then he could not keep running St Canard.

Only back in the Negaverse, just like in this script, everyone thought Negaduck was dead and so right now he wasn't running anything. It was an appalling realisation and he really needed to do something about ending Fireworks Studios ahead of schedule so he could get back home. To do that Negaduck needed a weapon and apparently they were shipping the matchbox he'd ordered all the way from Abu Dhabi by camel post.

"Okay, everybody in position? Quiet on the set. Action!" Bill, the look-alike Herb Muddlefoot, called out.

_The hospital was bustling with patients with varying complaints as Gosalyn and Launchpad walked in. Gosalyn walked up to the desk clerk behind the bullet-proof glass. "Hello, Greg, I was wondering if I could speak with Doctor Steelbeak."__  
_"He is due for a break." Greg consulted his schedule. "I'll let him know you're here."_  
_"I'm sure he knows I'm here already." Gosalyn stated, "Thank you." She went and sat down on a spare seat. Launchpad went and stood by the wall to keep a guard on her.__

Considering how old Launchpad was getting and how many broken bones he'd suffered over the past few years, Negaduck thought the idea of Launchpad as Gosalyn's protector was almost laughable. True to life, but a huge joke. The scripted Hooter was right. Gosalyn needed something that was a lot more terrifying than a veteran thug to watch her back.

_From down the ER corridor Steelbeak, dressed in a surgeon's outfit, came to talk to Gosalyn. "Hey, Gosalyn honey." He smiled at her, "Let's go to the staff room, huh? I don't want these poor guys getting any funny ideas."_

_Steelbeak led Gosalyn and Launchpad on through into the next segment of the set._

_Gosalyn and Steelbeak sat down at the table in the three-walled kitchenette. "Gosalyn, you know I'm in the middle of this." Steelbeak frowned slightly, "Anything I'm going to say is going to be me defending sides."__  
_"I know." Gosalyn said gently, "But you weren't in on killing my father."_  
_"That's true." Steelbeak sat back in his chair. "I've never been big on the whole vengeance routine. But still, Negaduck did torture Reggie."__

_"Negaduck didn't do that to Hooter." Gosalyn pointed out.__  
_"No, he just broke his home and sent him underground where he went quickly insane, that's all."_  
_"He doesn't sound insane to me." Gosalyn rejected unhappily._  
_"Honey, Gosalyn, you've never been down there to see him, he always comes up to see you."__

_"Is he a different sort of person down there?"__  
_"Don't-visit-him." Steelbeak said in a suddenly severe voice. "Or he'll take it that you're inviting him to solve your problem for you."_  
_Gosalyn thought for a moment about that. "How would he solve my problem?"_  
_"He would bite you on the neck, honey; he would turn you into a vampire."_  
_Gosalyn clasped her fingers around her throat, "I don't want to get hurt." She blinked her doleful eyes at Steelbeak, "You understand that part of me, don't you, Steelbeak?"_  
_"Yeah, I get you, honey; you're just looking for a shoulder to lean on." He smiled at her.__

_Gosalyn sighed, "I need to find a new dad."_

Negaduck slapped his face the first time he heard that line. "D'oh. I can't believe this."

* * *

"Everyone take ten for afternoon tea."

Jane came up to Negaduck. "Is Lenora's line wrong?"  
"It's the right line for Nega-Gosalyn." Negaduck answered, gritting his teeth in anguish.  
"Is her delivery off then?"  
"No, look, just leave me alone, will you?" Negaduck grabbed his chair and threw it at her.

Jane fell over, got back up and set the chair down again. Then she started straightening the other knocked askew chairs and Negaduck kicked them clear out of her grasp. Jane shrugged, turned away and went to investigate the food cart instead.

"I have looked after that kid for nine years." Negaduck moaned. "Has she learnt anything from me? No. No and no!"

At this moment, Negaduck noticed the Steelbeak actor looking like he had business on his mind and Negaduck followed him over to Jane at the coffee cart.

"My character seems like a nice sort," Steelbeak started in his Queen's English accent, "He works in ER and in this scene he's being a sympathetic ear for Nega-Gosalyn."  
"But?" Jane prompted.  
"Well, when I did my reading it was for a vampire character. So if he's so good then what is the vampire doing in ER?"  
"Doesn't that make sense?" Jane asked.

Negaduck snorted.  
"I feel it's uncharacteristic." Steelbeak's actor glanced at Negaduck and looked back at Jane. "And it is a grim take on the state of things at the hospital. Surely his colleagues would have noticed after the first few weeks if he were eating their patients?"  
"They're dweebs!" Negaduck interrupted, making Steelbeak turn to include him in the conversation. "And not all vampires have the same sick fetishes; he isn't just in there for the blood supply."

"What is he in there for then?"

The grossness of what he was about to say made Negaduck clench his beak. "Nega-Steelbeak gets off on sharing his ability to heal himself. It's the common thing he's got with the vegetable. They like to 'share'."  
"With Bushroot!" The actor suddenly pulled out his script to look at the cover. "I was reading that as a casual relationship between them."  
"Casual?" Negaduck sniggered, watching Steelbeak pull out a pen and start madly writing notes on the inside of the script-cover. "There's no such thing as 'casual' for a vampire; you might as well say that you're a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat. When a vampire grabs onto something they're not planning on letting go anytime soon and that's why that pansy Hooter has been dogging me for the last nine years. He's not casual; he's just pacing himself."

"I've got an annoying fan like that too." Steelbeak's actor commiserated, "How can you ever be rid of your unwanted admirer?"  
"By dying." In that moment, Negaduck remembered the meat warehouse.

"Maybe I didn't get out of the warehouse in time. Maybe I'm a ghost. But in that case why aren't I ghosting the real Nega-verse?" He glared over at the hospital scenery. It was real enough, but for the missing fourth wall with four different cameras pointed into the space and all the microphones and lights hovering suspended from metal fishing rod poles instead of a normal ceiling.

Negaduck spied Bill in his green and watermelon print shirt talking with Launchpad in his tattered leather jacket. Bill, looking like he was from the Dark-verse or some Normal-verse and Launchpad looking like he was from the Negaverse.

"I miss the old days." Launchpad was saying, "I went to the auditions for that new Tarzan movie, you know."  
"Dizzy Studios are doing that one, right?"  
"Yeah." Launchpad chuckled, "I've played Tarzan before but that day I walked in there I really felt my age. Most of those actors in the line up were all there looking twenty years younger than me."  
"I thought you'd gotten a different role in that one."  
"I did." Launchpad shrugged, "Twenty years ago I 'was' Tarzan. Now I'm playing Jane Allgood's father."  
Bill sighed in wistful remembrance. "I remember the old days when I used to wear a loincloth ..."

Negaduck shuddered and turned away. "Or then again maybe I'm in heaven." He took in the stage and production crew eating teacake around him. "But if this is heaven then why aren't there more cute fluffy bunnies?" He strode up to Bill and disrupted their conversation, "Tell me what you would do if I blew up this set?"

Bill finished his drink. "S'pose I'd have to rebuild it then. Tea break's over. Places everyone, Sarah, could you fetch Lenora? The last I saw of her she was talking to the Exit light over the stage door." Bill trundled off, righted his upturned chair and sat down.

"Unbelievable." Negaduck stared after Bill. There was something seriously wrong with this universe wherever he was. Not super Posi-universe wrong, but wrong nonetheless.

* * *

"Quiet on the set, and action."

_"Gosalyn," Steelbeak said in a delicate voice, "You're seventeen, and at this moment, St Canard belongs to you. There would be a lot of men who would be interested in marrying you."_

_"You don't understand." Gosalyn's brow furrowed, "Boys run away from me."_

_"Doctor Steelbeak, you are needed in ER."_

The voice of Liquidator called from behind Negaduck and made him jump. He turned around in his chair to glare at the man standing by his shoulder. The man was a corgi, slightly overweight with a black T-shirt that had the picture of an elevator control panel with the numbers '1' and '3' highlighted. That wasn't half as creepy as the fact that he looked nothing like Liquidator at all.

_Steelbeak stood up. "Boys will act differently now that Negaduck isn't standing behind you with a chainsaw. I have to get back to work. Take care, honey."_

"Alright, cut; let's wrap that for the day. Great work everyone. See you tomorrow. Lenora, Sarah will take you home."

Negaduck watched everyone quickly vanish from the entire set in a mental agony that held no comparison. It had taken them five hours just to come up to the point where Steelbeak told Gosalyn to find a boyfriend.

"There's got to be a faster way to do this." Negaduck growled. "The script." He concluded and stormed out of the ER soundstage.


	4. A Night's Work

_A/n: Oh, yeah. Say 'Hell-ooh, Negaduck.'_

* * *

**A Night's Work**

* * *

Negaduck got back to his trailer and grabbed up his copy of the script. He read the list of actors. The rest of the Friendly Four were in this script and so were a list of contestants. He flicked his eyes through the description lines.

"Bashful, Dopey, Sleazy, Grumpy, Brainy ..." He groaned. "Which one wins my girl?" Negaduck pulled the book open from the back cover to the last page of the script so he could read the last few lines. "Oh." He sat back, "the power mad megalomaniac wins. Well, that's a nice change. Maybe I did teach Gosalyn something after all."

Knowing how the story ended, Negaduck didn't need to look at the script again so he threw it in the waste paper bin. "I'm tired of this dump, what's the rest of this pink universe look like?"

* * *

Negaduck took a walk to Ashdown Crescent. There stood the massive lunatic asylum, sure enough. Two storeys of dark brown bricks, tiny windows and a grey slated roof. He took a turn and went on through the suburbs.

The night was edging on when he got to Avian Way. Negaduck stepped up to the gate. It looked different from the house in his universe, in most of the St Canard universes, in fact, since this one was dark in the moonlight, like it had black paint.

"If this is the Dark-verse, this shouldn't be an easy job."

Negaduck shoved the gate open, boldly powered up to the porch and then kicked the door in. "Yep; that was easy alright."

Debris from the broken door littered the floor of the darkened hall. It was like he'd stepped through into the meat warehouse again with the smell of quietly rotting flesh.

Negaduck reached for the light switch but his hand never made it before something screeched from the kitchen and ploughed into his chest, knocking the breath out of him. Negaduck dove down and grabbed up a door fragment to battle the floating disembodied head but it left through the front door. "Come back, you no life!" He shouted out after it.

* * *

Failing the return of the dead head, Negaduck turned back to the house and reached for the light switch again.

It didn't work.

"Did someone die before they could pay their power bill?" Negaduck moved in through to the dark lounge and tried the light switch in there. It didn't work either. Through the dark, he could see the furniture had a different arrangement from his Negaverse. He stepped in through the gloom. A video recorder was plugged into the television set so he turned it on and pressed play.

Drake Mallard's tormented voice sounded haunting on the speakers.

_"He is evil_  
_Am I evil?_

_My assailant_  
_Do I know?_  
_I live alone_  
_He lives in a crowd_

_Of my undoing  
__Am I the cause?_

_The child_  
_My child_  
_Do I know?_  
_Do I regret?_

_He follows me_  
_Will he follow them?_

_He is a vampire._  
_He is old._  
_I am one._  
_What am I?"_

* * *

As his universal copy's voice rang out Negaduck decided the lounge was clear of creepers and moved across to the kitchen. This room was a mess; ransacked with the door to the fridge ajar, most of the cupboard doors ripped off their hinges, the window in the back door smashed, the round table over on its side and the tap slowly marking time with its dripping.

Negaduck's survey of the room ended at the high chair. He circled around the mess of upturned chair legs to stand in front of the wooden frame standing there. One of Quackerjack's clown dolls was seated there, the smile plastered on its red dimpled cheeks beneath a curly red haired wig.

"Mama," it said, its black glassy eyes fixed on him. Its hostile detection sensors had kicked in.  
"Uh-oh, I've heard this song before ..." Negaduck looked around for something really big to smash it with and seized the legs of a chair.

The clown doll sprouted meat cleavers and used them to climb up on the top of the high chair's table. Negaduck readied the kitchen chair in his hands and as the clown doll jumped at him he batted it back into the hall with the chair back.

"Mama," it said again from the floor just outside the kitchen threshold.

Negaduck gritted his teeth. "Why don't you just die already?" He growled and grabbed the highchair as his next weapon.

The high-chair grabbed him back with its tray table flapping like a beak and Negaduck wrestled his cape away from its metal-hinged wooden jaws. The fabric tore and Negaduck saw the kitchen knives levitating from the drawer beneath the sideboard bench. He dove down behind the upturned table only to discover the tip of his bill less than a metre away from the cleaver clown doll.

With its frozen smile, the clown crawled its way on its four meat cleavers to him; "Mama."  
"Get away from me you little-."

The oven door clattered open and Negaduck had an idea. He grabbed another spare chair leg and swiped the clown doll left. It scatted across and hit the wall and flailed for a moment upside down.

Negaduck stood up, saw the knives still hovering and dropped down behind the table again. This time there was the sound of thwacking as the knives hit the round table top. "Took your sweet time," Negaduck rolled his eyes and stood up, grabbed the nearest chair and, holding it by the legs he scooped up the clown doll using the back of the chair. With it teetering on the edge, Negaduck slid it into the oven. He flipped up the door with his foot and spun the dial around.

"Mama," The clown doll said for the last time from inside the oven before flames enveloped it and caused it to explode.

The shock of the explosion hurled Negaduck back and he hit the handles of the knives stuck in the back of the table. The oven door smacked open again, the house shook and streams of dust poured from the ceiling. Smoke belched out of the oven. Negaduck coughed and rubbed his back.

"Now this is much more fun than that stupid movie studio." He grabbed the handle of the biggest knife he could see and steadily crept towards the mouth of the kitchen.

* * *

"Basement or upstairs?" He asked himself with a grin. "Don't these things usually start in the basement?"

He headed to the right around the staircase and went down the steps into the laundry of the house. It was dark down here. It was really dark down here. Negaduck tried the light switch and it turned on with a flicker and spark, fading on and off. The stairs were rickety as Negaduck continued down and came to the cold cement floor of the basement. Debris littered the floor.

To the left of him the washing machine started up. It was one of those front loaders and the soap and bubbles spun around in the window. Negaduck noticed something sitting on the machine and picked his way through the piles of debris. He snatched the box and squinted in the fading light at it. "It's just laundry powder." He grunted and threw it behind him in disgust. Then he saw what the box had been sitting on. It was a newspaper clipping.

**"Suburban Nightmare.**  
**No bodies found.**  
**One Survivor.**  
**Committed to Ashdown Lunatic Asylum."**

"Well, that makes the nutcase more interesting." Negaduck pocketed the newspaper clipping and worked his way around the basement for something a bit bigger than a meat cleaver. He didn't find it, and then he paused as across the room the washing machine chimed. Negaduck stared at the machine, his fingers relaxed on the meat cleaver. "Come on out then, you washed up poltergeist."

The door of the machine popped open and a tentacle reached out to the debris pile between them.

"You're kidding." Negaduck watched in fascination as another large tentacle reached out from the tiny washing machine tub and started sweeping through the debris. A third arm joined them.

"I don't think you know who you're messing with," he told the calamari waiting to happen, "I-am-Negaduck!" He proclaimed.

A fourth tentacle armed its way out followed by a soft bulbous head. A moment later the whole of the squid had plopped out of the machine and tentacles were waving their way towards Negaduck. The squid let out an almighty squeal from its tooth lined mouth.

Negaduck smiled at the monstrosity. "Think I'm dinner, right?"

The squid started pulling itself towards him.

"Think again."

The squid returned his words with another squeal and Negaduck flung the meat cleaver like a dart into its sharp hungry mouth. A moment later the room had a dead squid crowning the top of the debris pile and Negaduck decided he'd just lost his meat cleaver and needed to find a new weapon. He scanned the debris pile beneath the seafood monstrosity but still nothing jumped out at him. Disappointed, Negaduck decided he'd have to wing his next encounter with the ghosts of this house.

Negaduck made his way up the stairs and skirted around the staircase, noticing the hallstand with the telephone as he passed. This was definitely not the Negaverse. He pressed the messages light and started looking around the debris for something big and heavy to hold.

_"Gosalyn, sweetie, I'm so sorry." Negaduck heard his own, Drake Mallard's voice again._

_"I thought  
I was strong enough_  
_I was clever enough_  
_I was brave enough_  
_Me and my ego_  
_I've let you down._

_I'm sorry_  
_I am so, so sorry."_

"Universe to universe it's no big surprise." Negaduck reached into the pile and came up with a good looking piece of two by four with a bonus door handle. "You're still flapping your beak about yourself."

Negaduck stretched his back as he sized up the staircase leading up to the rest of the house and was keen to find out what was up there.

* * *

As he climbed the stairs, Negaduck noticed the charcoal effect getting worse. He got up to the top and discovered the rest of the house was little more than a black burnt out frame on the inside. Stepping to the right and into the remains of the right-hand bedroom, he looked at the charred wood of a baby's cot. Sensing he wasn't alone in the remains of Gosalyn's room, Negaduck looked to his right to see a moderately intact cupboard.

"Closet monster?" Negaduck queried, getting clear into the centre of the room. "Come on out, shame face."

There was a rattling and then the cupboard burst open. Skeletons dropped down off the coat hangers and rattled their meatless forms towards Negaduck.

"Skeletons!" Negaduck laughed and one of the skeletons nearly hooked him with its clawing bone hands. Still laughing, Negaduck ducked out of the way of the two skeletons. He grabbed the corner of the cot's frame and yanked it sideways into the centre of the room, wiping out the gutless duo. The skeletons tumbled to a cluttered mound and twitched, trying to get back up.

"Nuh-uh." Negaduck chuckled and raised his wooden plank and swung, knocking the skulls off the top of the two skeletons.

The bones collapsed back into the heap and then turned to dust.

"This is hilarious." Negaduck laughed again and turned away from the incinerated cot.

* * *

Negaduck stepped over the remains of the wall, through the ensuite and into the next bedroom. Two small beds stood side by side but apart from the shapes of the furniture there was nothing much else left of the scenery. Negaduck went to the window and looked out at the tree. It stood by the other window, Gosalyn's window, and looked the most intact thing in this weird place. There was nothing particularly odd about this room, Negaduck decided, apart from the twin children's beds. Not many St Canards had a Drake Mallard with two small children.

The Dark Duck universe did. Negaduck puzzled over this. He had been aiming for the Dark Duck universe. But then why was everything so pink? And when had the Drake Mallard in this universe died?

"Received his Final Death," Negaduck corrected his thoughts. He stepped into the corridor and felt the house shake for a moment. "There's still something else in this place." Negaduck looked at the handle to the half-charcoal, half-air door, the master bedroom. If this was the Dark Duck universe, then this was the room of the vampire.

With a simple twist of the handle the rest of the door crumbled into ash on the floorboards. Negaduck stepped through into the bedroom and looked around. The remains of a king double canopy bed stood in the middle and then, turning around, he saw the cupboard. The last closet had skeletons. Negaduck reached for the handle, twisted and jumped back as a mountain of clothes fell out and nearly landed right on top of him.

"I've really got to be more careful about these wardrobes in the future."

Negaduck stepped further back as the mound of clothes started writhing and moving. Collecting, joining, moving, twisting into shape, and growing in size.

"What's so scary about an overloaded clothes horse?" Negaduck swung his two by four at the clothes monster. It wrapped a peach-coloured sleeve around the plank and swallowed it, doorknob and all down the neck of a red dress. "Oh, okay, so clothes eat stuff. I should've seen that coming."

Not wanting to become the latest fashion victim, Negaduck backed further away and looked around the room for something to defeat the monstrosity. He reached the side of the bed and seeing the ironing board standing on the wall behind the mirror he leapt across the bed. Negaduck shoved the full length oval mirror aside to get to the iron and for an instant the clothes monster shrieked.

Turning, Negaduck saw the monster on the other side of the bed stop shivering to start coming at him again. "You're kidding." He looked back at the mirror and shifted it to directly face the clothes monster. Negaduck watched as the clothes poltergeist started haemorrhaging clothes. There was the sporadic sound of buttons popping. With a fatal 'zip', the whole thing exploded in an eruption of woollen sweaters and flannel nightgowns and one of them hit Negaduck's face.

"Argh!" In a desperate scramble, Negaduck pulled the green jumper off him and threw it onto the bed.

With the room finally at rest, Negaduck turned to survey the quietude and noticed a book on top of the side table. It was a notepad. He picked it up and flicked to the writing in it.

**"Dear Negaduck." **The first page began._  
_Negaduck's feathers prickled. "How'd you know I'd be coming?" He flicked the page.  
**"Only you could get this far."** The next page answered._  
_Unnerved, Negaduck flicked over again.  
**"Do you recall the first ward that you woke up when you broke down the front door?"  
**"Yeah?" Negaduck flicked the page.  
**"Well, it's back and it's brought company. You have just under thirty seconds to escape."**

The house beneath Negaduck's feet rumbled and shook. With a start of panic Negaduck raced from the master bedroom to Gosalyn's bedroom and leapt out the window to the tree branch. He caught it and dropped down, vaulting across the lawn and tumbled out of the front gate.

Negaduck turned and saw a great cloud of grey smoke envelope the house as the head of a giant snake-like leviathan reached up over the cloud. Letting out a roar it plunged its head and swallowed half the tree in one go. The giant worm head turned left and right, and then withdrew back down into the grey cloud. When the smoke had cleared Negaduck could see that the house had collapsed into a heap.

Negaduck stared at the mound of tiles and charcoal with white porcelain and appliance bits sticking out of it. "Are you done yet?" He asked the house from the safety of the pavement.

It didn't answer.

* * *

Negaduck yawned. "So in this universe Darkwing Duck is dead and Gosalyn is called Lenora not Gosalyn to get away from it all. I can live with that." He stood up and headed back to the Fireworks Studios, assured of a bed and a freshly brewed cup of coffee with a hot breakfast when he awoke.


	5. There Are Four Lights

_A/n: I sooo want Deviant art member Drawfox5's picture of Negaduck and his chainsaw for my story's cover art._

_A/n: If you don't know the mind-blowing story concept behind this chapter's title reference that's okay because you were probably on a different channel watching The So Late It's Early Show or even more likely studying the insides of your eyelids at the time it aired. Whatever the reason for your not knowing the reference, it just means you're not as big a geek as you thought you were. Nah nah nah-nah nah._

* * *

**There Are Four Lights**

* * *

As he walked back to the Fireworks Studio lot, Negaduck figured the house incident out and his ego took a direct hit. This whole expedition had amounted to a royal rip off. All he'd done back there was trigger Morgana's wards to self-destruct the house. So Negaduck broke a house. Big deal since the house was coming down anyway.

Although it had been fun, Negaduck admitted to himself, and on the plus side he had a new target to uncover in this pink universe. Apparently there was something lurking in this St Canard's depths and it was a heck of a lot more efficient at killing stuff than he was. It had rid the world of Darkwing Do-Good Duck and all Negaduck had done was clean up the other villain's leftovers. When he found that guy, they were going to hit it off famously; one way, or another.

By the time Negaduck hit the pillow he was pretty happy with his prospects for more fun.

* * *

The next morning Negaduck walked in to the breakfast area of the Fireworks Studio lot. The actors Quackerjack and Megavolt were sitting at one of the round white-clothed tables making idle chit-chat over empty plates and coffee cups. Hooter was over by the cart getting his food.

"I'm so excited!" The Quackerjack actor bubbled, "My first actual movie! I mean I've done a lot of TV shows but never a feature length!"  
Negaduck helped himself to the hot food at the cart while Megavolt sipped his coffee.  
"I've done two-parters." The actor playing Megavolt droned, "One thing I've noticed about this movie gig is how relaxed everyone seems to be."  
"Relaxed?"  
"Sure." Megavolt sipped his coffee. "It took them all of yesterday just to do two scenes."

"Oh. How long should it normally take then?"  
"Well, how long does it take where you come from to get your good footage?"  
"We do about twenty minutes in a week."  
"Twenty!" Megavolt scoffed. "Ha! Try forty five in a week and with big screen special effects!"  
"Oh, but that's science fiction." Quackerjack dismissed. "Nobody cares about those types of shows."

Megavolt nearly gagged on his coffee. "In fifty to a hundred years from now people who you say are 'nobody' will still be watching episodes of Cosmoduck like they were A-grade movies." Megavolt stated.  
The actor playing Hooter interrupted them, sitting nearby with his plate. "Not to mention that Duck? has a peak audience of about ten million viewers so your 'nobody cares' comment really doesn't stick to Duck? either. You're obviously very young. What sit-com did you say you cut your teeth on?"

Quackerjack puffed out his chest. "Duckly versus the World."  
"Um?" Hooter paused and looked at Megavolt for help.  
"It's about modern day teenage angst." Megavolt shrugged. "I've flicked over it once or twice."  
"Oh; that show." Hooter realised dismissively.  
"It was on in a prime viewing time slot for three years running!" Quackerjack fiercely defended himself. "And I got this role because of it." Quackerjack pouted.  
"Exactly!" Hooter declared. "That makes us all even."

Negaduck had hoped these pansies would break out into a brawl, but instead he had a headache. "You call that an argument?" Negaduck dumped his plate on an empty table. He stepped up to their table and told them off. "He just said he hates your stuff!" He said to Quackerjack, pointing at Megavolt. "Are you going to let that slide?"  
Quackerjack paused for a moment, "But he's like, thirty five. Duckly versus the World is for a young teenage audience."  
"Negaduck makes a point to me." Megavolt stated. "We need to sit you down one weekend for some home viewing."  
"Oh, yes!" Hooter agreed, "That'd be a lot of fun! We can showcase episodes of Cosmoduck and Duck? back to back."  
"All the way back from the vintage 60's episodes-."  
"To the dawn of CGI-."  
"Don't forget the audio adventures."  
"We'll have so much fun!"

There was a glint of panic in Quackerjack's eyes. "I think I hear Barbara calling me; bye!"

There was a beat as Quackerjack disappeared around the corner and then Hooter and Megavolt cracked up laughing.  
"Could you really sit down and watch your own episodes?" Hooter asked Megavolt.  
"Never unless you paid me." Megavolt declared.  
"Me neither." Hooter agreed with a chuckle. "It was a lot of fun doing it, though."  
"It was a lot of fun seeing his face."  
They laughed again.

Yet again, the bloody fight did not ensue, and Negaduck wondered how fast he could find another haunted house to destroy in St Canard. Maybe he should be out there looking for them right now, or maybe he should be finding a gasoline can and a match to remedy this nightmare first.

Although the food was good the company was lousy. It was a good job this place didn't have him chained to it.

"Scene three shooting is to commence in ten minutes on sound stage seventeen, everyone." Sarah came around and advised. "Has Lenora been this way?"  
"No, I haven't seen Reginald either." Megavolt advised.  
"Well, Len and Barbara are still probably fussing over them. I'll go see. Everyone else, stage seventeen."

* * *

Negaduck followed the others determined at hunting down answers. There were certain things that revolted him about this place but also things that outright disturbed him. Like where in the heck the script came from, who was Joan Cracknell and what in this plain and boring pink universe had the power to send his universal duplicate to oblivion.

Set seventeen turned out to be a replication of the Negaverse Bird Cage Apartment's ground level. The set had all four walls this time but the whole thing was set on a moving mechanical jigsaw-puzzle machine so the cameras could literally take a perfect shot from any angle.

Or so Megavolt and Hooter's discussion was indicating. Quackerjack was gaping in awe at the money the studio must have poured into the elaboration and Negaduck couldn't give a darn apart from how true the replication was to his exact Negaverse.

It wasn't someone else's Negaverse they were replicating; it was his. His; down to a vampire Hooter and a vampire Steelbeak and a Bushroot so crazed with vengeance as to drive a rift between he and Gosalyn. And so the similarities continued on into Bird Cage Apartment's milk bar.

For one reason or another, Negaduck tended to trash this place pretty regularly. The Friendly Four simply redecorated with a different theme whenever the damage got too much. At the point when Negaduck had escaped Bushroot and Hooter the other day, the Milk Bar was done up in an old Western style.

And this is what the set in front of him looked like, down to the swinging saloon doors, the bull horns, the whip hanging on the walls and the great big black scorch mark on the floorboards from last week when Negaduck's timing had been off and he'd played heavy on one of the patrons exactly when Megavolt was looking.

Negaduck looked right around him, wondering where the actor for Liquidator was but couldn't see so much as a puddle on the floor. He went to Sarah to ask where he was and saw she was holding a white stick with a yellow ball on it.  
"What's that?"  
"This?" Sarah waved the stick at him. "This is Liquidator."  
"You're kidding." Negaduck glared at the offensive round thing.  
"Not really, no. It's just for eye-line reference so the actors know where they need to be looking when they need to look at him."  
"There's no Liquidator at all in this universe then." Negaduck stated.  
"Not on this side of the camera. By post production stage he will be as alive as everyone else here."

"The sky is setting." Lenora interrupted them. "All the monkeys are out of bounds."  
"Erm, yes, Lenora, Barbara is just finishing Bushroot's make-up and then we can make a start with the next scene. Why don't you sit down here for a moment?"

Sarah turned back to Negaduck as Lenora sat down on the chair beside them. "Uh, yes, so Allen does Liquidator's voice and-."  
"And you dragged out someone from under their meds to be in your play." He pointed accusingly at Lenora. "That's pretty evil. Not that I'm complaining."  
"Movie."  
"Whatever." Negaduck rolled his eyes.

"She was the Production Manager's choice."  
"Are you saying Herb-er-Bill is evil?"  
Sarah rolled her eyes, "Should I dignify that with a response?"  
Negaduck crossed his arms. "Where do I find the guy who's really in charge?"  
Sarah thumbed back. "You have been through the front gates, right?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Well, just go in the opposite direction. The management offices are all the way at the back of the lot. You can't miss it; it's the only building with windows."  
"Right." Negaduck took a step in that direction.

"What about getting the Negaverse properly portrayed?"

Negaduck stopped. "You're kidding." He turned around. "Apart from the facts that this set is too perfect, that this is the Friendly Four and they don't play by the rules of the Negaverse, apart from all that; I've got a life to lead and you're just doing a movie. I'll be back later to burn this place down if I get bored enough."  
"Have fun!" Sarah called cheerily after him, waving the yellow Liquidator ball in farewell.

* * *

A relieved Negaduck approached the windowed office block and stepped inside the lobby. It was as plain, ordinary and pink as the rest of this universe. He spied the plaque giving the internal directory of the pink office block on the wall beside the wide staircase.

**Managing Director of Productions: Joan Cracknell level 2**

Around the landing and up to the next level, the stairs were so easy and gradual that they would barely intimidate an invalid with a walking frame. Upstairs the corridor was nearly as wide as the lobby and could have hosted two ten pin bowling lanes at the same time.

Negaduck kicked in the door labelled 'Joan Cracknell'.

_"I already know that Marionette Studios have a centralized management policy, Miss Smith. I hired you to uncover their succession plan."_

Puzzled and more than a little annoyed, Negaduck stormed up to the desk. The woman there looked exactly like Binkie Muddlefoot.

_"Well, just supposing their esteemed owner and director came down with one of those 'terminal' colds? Not that a person of my standing and moral fibre would suggest such wicked things, but it could be so easily arranged by one that way inclined." She said with a suggestively dark tone into the phone. "Fireworks Studios could quite suddenly dominate the entire market and I sincerely doubt they would allow that to happen."_

"So you're the one whose cup of goodness does not runneth over." Negaduck interrupted. "Binkie Muddlefoot."

Joan held up an annoyed finger to him to tell him she was wrapping up her conversation.

_"Now do the job I hired you for and find me their succession plan!" Joan commanded severely into her phone._

Binkie-or-Joan switched off her cordless phone and threw the receiver into the waste paper bin in disgust. "Independent contractors; they're always asking questions. Now, Mister Negaduck, I've just got one question for you."

"I didn't come in here to answer your questions!" Negaduck folded his arms, "I am-!"  
"Not the one in charge at the moment." She callously interrupted him, "I suggest you answer my question, Mister Negaduck. There's very little need to make this a life or death matter so quickly; we have a whole five minutes in which to get to that point."

"This may be a sign of me getting old." Negaduck put his hands on his hips and accepted her logic for the moment, "What's your one question then?"  
"How do you keep the colour of your clothes so bright?"  
Irritated, Negaduck put his hands on the desk. "They're coated with Teflon. Now, where am I and what have you done with my universe?"

Joan raised an eyebrow, "It's all in the script; well; haven't you been reading it, dear?" She tsked and from her desk she handed him a fresh copy of 'Queen of the Negaverse'.  
"Quit the horseplay!" Negaduck ordered, casting the script aside. "Where am I?"  
"In my doorless office." Joan responded.

"Next question, Mister Negaduck."  
Negaduck took a step back and glared at Joan, "I've tortured people for less."  
"I'm sure you have," Joan answered easily, "Only this is my universe, my studio, my office and if there's any torturing to be done around here it'll be under 'my' orders."  
Negaduck folded his arms. "So we're going to stand here bartering favour points?"  
"Certainly not! I'm a very busy woman and I haven't got all day." Joan stood up. "So shall we get on with your next question, Mister Negaduck?"

Negaduck frowned at her. "But you are Binkie Muddlefoot."  
"My name is Joan Cracknell however 'you' will address me as 'boss'."  
"Boss?" Negaduck sneered, "There is no such St Canard where Binkie Muddlefoot is capable of being a boss of anything larger than a suburban household."

"My name is Joan Cracknell, Mister Negaduck," she repeated, "And since it appears all your questions have been answered I hereby officially terminate this interview." She pressed a button on her desk and the floor beneath Negaduck's feet gave way, sending him falling into darkness.


	6. Spectre of the Gun

_A/n: Remember that one episode when Negaduck discovered himself suddenly holding a baby Darkwing Duck? I love the way he said__'oh, goo, what happened to you?'__Oh, that perfect sound of moderate disgust!_

_A/n: Spectre of a short post. Feels short. At approx 1,667 words it actually has the average length I go for._

_A/n: Script for AnonymousZGirl._

* * *

**Spectre of the Gun**

* * *

Negaduck slid down the chute and landed feet first in a badly lit basement with a linoleum floor.

"So the Production Manager is a fake too." Negaduck remarked to himself. "This is getting interesting. I haven't met a single real person in this world yet."

There was a hissing sound behind him. Negaduck got up off the ground and looked into the dark corners of the room to see yellow eyes staring back at him.

Cats eyes.

"Oh, kitty." Negaduck made out the dark shapes of more giant felines, "make that 'kitties'." He gazed back at them. "Aw, is someone going to loose a tail?" He patronized them. "Bark!" He quacked threateningly at the top of his voice and the cats shrieked and raced away.

Negaduck thought for a moment, "Either they've found a corner to fight from or that's the way out. Sounds good," Negaduck decided and followed after the cats. "So in this universe Binkie is a crazy cat lady." Negaduck rolled his eyes. "But she can't be the boss so that makes this ..." Negaduck paused, "This whole universe is a fake."

* * *

After a short wrangling session, Negaduck and the big cats were on the level and they led him back up into the lobby of the office building. Back on the Fireworks Studios lot, Negaduck slouched towards the studio cafe area where he knew the others would wind up whenever Bill, this universe's fake Herb Muddlefoot, said 'Let's break for lunch'.

"Someone is the boss of this place." Negaduck mused, sitting down at one of the tables with a cup of coffee and a plate of roast beef sandwiches, "But it sure as heck ain't Binkie."

He looked into the steaming dark brown liquid in his cup and started counting the facts down. "Liquidator straight doesn't exist. Darkwing Duck is dead, Gosalyn's not playing with a full deck, Binkie is the boss decoy, Megavolt and Hooter are science fiction geeks, Quackerjack is a teen-angst freak, and Launchpad's a retired Tarzan." Negaduck sat back. Saying it all aloud and Negaduck suddenly had an answer. He sat back smugly, "You've created a whole pink universe to play in, 'boss'." He smiled patronizingly, "Well done; you win."

All Negaduck had to do now was expose the holes in this pink universe because whoever created the universe he was in, they were not all-seeing, all-powerful and all-knowing. They couldn't be for putting Binkie in charge like this. The maestro also was probably standing pretty close to the other balls on the table to keep an eye on them and line them up right, just like Herb kept doing with the actors on the set.

* * *

The sound of footfalls came up from behind him and Negaduck turned his head to casually observe the cast and crew of 'Queen of the Negaverse' arrive.

"Thank you for the advice, Negaduck." Steelbeak said down to him with a smile, "I'm actually really getting into my character now."

For a moment Negaduck didn't care, then he realised this was an opportunity to get at the boss, "Yeah, I've sideswiped a lot of vampires over the years." Negaduck faked a helpful smile, "Are there any other little details that maybe I can help you with?"  
Steelbeak sat straight down in the chair opposite Negaduck like Christmas had arrived early. "Are there? I would be so grateful for your help!"

"Oh, anything I can do." Negaduck cooed insincerely.

"Wait, I got it, how about my place after we finish shooting for the day?" Steelbeak said, "Home baked steak and potato pie. You can't believe how much you will fall in love with my pastry."  
"Pastry?" Negaduck repeated in surprise.  
Steelbeak grinned slyly, "Why, you think I'm just an actor? It's not like I'm on the down and out when I'm not on a production payroll. I'm what you call a 'survivor'."

Negaduck smiled back at him.

This universe's version of Steelbeak considered the art of pastry-making as a survival tool. Clearly he hadn't visited the house on Avian Way or met Joan Cracknell's basement cats.

"Sound stage two in ten minutes everyone."

* * *

Negaduck joined the others and discovered sound stage two a massive arena with stone columns forming alcoves. This was not in his universe. He weaved through the crowd to Bill.

"Where's this supposed to be?"  
"Oh, this?" Bill pulled out a script, "This is St Canard stadium."  
"That burnt down twelve years ago." Negaduck commented. "It's a big hole in the ground now."  
"Not anymore." Bill shrugged.

"Oh, he's having you on, Negaduck." Bushroot interrupted, "It's still a big hole in the ground. It's my scene first, right, Bill?"  
"Yeah."  
"Right." Bushroot smiled at Negaduck, "Excuse me; this is my big big big thirty second slot."  
Negaduck raised an eyebrow. "If you're going to go bag yourself out I might as well go home and take a nap."

"Shush, quiet." Bushroot continued grandly, "For I, Reginald Bushroot, Doctor of Practical Psychology am about to rebuild St Canard Stadium."  
Negaduck glanced at the stage. "It's already there." He waved over at the big dirt bowl.  
"That's only on this side of the camera at the moment." Bushroot replied.

"Who-the-heck-are-you-kidding?" Negaduck snapped at him; "this isn't about you showing off your mighty plant powers." Negaduck gestured back at the already existing stadium, "This is you trying to win back Gosalyn. It's big, it might be big enough; who knows what's in that kid's head sometimes."

Negaduck headed back into the crowd of cameramen and waiting actors.

_The Bushroot actor waved his arms in the air like he was commanding a jungle of greenery to unearth the stadium they were seeing._

_"What do you think, Megsy?" The suddenly sober acting Bushroot turn away from the stadium as Megavolt approached him from behind.__  
_Megavolt stepped up beside him. "I think we're condoning a bloodbath."_  
_"This is Gosalyn's idea." Bushroot argued._  
_"That doesn't make it right." Megavolt responded, "She's grieving the loss of her father. Her father's gone, Reggie!"__

_Bushroot pulled away from his friend; "How else to save St Canard?"_

_"Save St Canard?" Megavolt shook his head. "You weren't saving St Canard, you were avenging yourself and St Canard isn't saved yet. Gosalyn could actually choose someone worse than Negaduck to replace him."__  
_Bushroot paused, "You don't trust Gosalyn. I don't believe this! You're going on me and you don't even trust Gosalyn!"_  
_"Even is such a strong word." Megavolt replied and started walking away.__

_"You're the tactician." Bushroot called after him, "What would you suggest?"__  
_"I suggest..." Megavolt turned to him for a moment, "That we get to know who these contestants are so Gosalyn can see them showcased for their good and bad qualities."_  
_"Okay." Bushroot stepped alongside Megavolt, "The first one is called Derk."__

"Cut, that's great guys, let's everyone take a tea break and meet up again in sound stage thirteen." Bill declared.

"You're kidding." Negaduck grumbled, following after the others. "I'd have liked to see them all try to kill each other. Stupid Friendly Four." He grumbled.  
"Sorry, Negaduck," Jane said from behind him and fell in step beside him. "This is one of those major plot points. Besides; it's not like we built a whole stadium set just to not use it."  
Negaduck looked back at the stadium, "Oh, well, that's alright then." He decided a bit happier, "That's possibly worth hanging around for."

"Yeah," Jane smiled at him, "This is real Spectre of the Gun stuff."

* * *

"Places everyone!" Bill called.

Soundstage thirteen was an interior and had the same sort of stone columns as the stadium set and so Negaduck figured 'on the other side of the camera' that the two sets were the same place.

_The Friendly Four, with Liquidator as an empty spot between them, were doing their manic 'finishing touches' routine that Negaduck always seemed to catch them in the middle of. All that sickening bubbling excitement; they could never just compose themselves._

_"Camera?" _

Liquidator's voice came from behind Negaduck making him jump and spin around. He glared at Allen in his black shirt with a picture of a curtain of numbers on it.

_"Check." Megavolt answered from the set and pointed to a dummy camera hanging from the roof._  
_"Us?" Liquidator asked again._

_Quackerjack looked around at the others, "Check."_  
_"Oh." Bushroot paused, hesitating, "Shouldn't we do this with Steelbeak?"_

_Quackerjack looked at Megavolt and the imaginary Liquidator._  
_"Why?" Allen said from behind Negaduck._

_"Because he's a vampire," Bushroot answered, holding up his leafy hands in supplication, "So he can tell the fastest if anyone starts lying."_  
_Quackerjack scratched his head. "Why would they lie?"_  
_Bushroot folded his arms, "Because they want to win. It's a hard-wired psychological reflex. Nobody wants to lose."_

_Quackerjack jumped up onto the stand with the chairs to look down at Bushroot, "So then how would they lie?"_  
_"How?" Bushroot repeated, "It all depends on their insecurities based on their reaction to our responses to them."_

Negaduck rolled his eyes. "Ask a geek a question, get a geeky answer."

_"But what I'm trying to say, Bushy," Quackerjack jumped down to face him, "Is that the four of us are very different. They have a lot of lies to choose from because we're all going to be something they're insecure about and something they feel safe with."_

_Bushroot let out an exasperated groan, "You're missing the point, Quackers!"_  
_"What is your point, Reggie?" Quackerjack asked in a sickeningly kind voice._  
_Bushroot smiled darkly at Quackerjack and turned to Megavolt. "Megsy, you're the tactician, would you trust Steelbeak to help us?"_  
_"Oh, so you're finally asking me?" Megavolt gestured melodramatically, "Well, it just so happens that I already called him earlier and he's right behind you."_

_Steelbeak stepped up into the centre of the set, "Sure, I wouldn't miss any of this." He smiled at the others, "Shall we get this show on the road?"_

"Cut, that's a wrap for the day!" Bill declared. "Great work everyone. See you tomorrow."

* * *

As everyone dispersed, Negaduck stared at the set. "This is slow. This is excruciatingly slow. I need to burn this place down."  
Steelbeak came up beside him, "Hey, that's why it's called work. Come on; let's get out of this lot."


	7. Level Up

**Level Up**

* * *

Under a pink-cloud filled sky, Negaduck stepped off the pink pavement and climbed into the rich red passenger seat of the pink Eagle IX. He was keen on poking holes into the plot of this wacky universe of the fiend who was dumb enough to put Binkie Muddlefoot in charge of a blockbuster movie corporation. Negaduck was still inwardly laughing.

There was one thing about Steelbeak that remained fairly the same between universes and that was his sense of taste. Good, bad or indifferent, there was always something flamboyant about Steelbeak. He went about with great sweeping gestures and when he switched the engine of his car on, the roar was so loud and powerful Negaduck sank blissfully back into the heated seat. He felt like he almost had his chainsaw back.

* * *

It was a short drive ending in the resident car park of Bird Cage Apartments. Apparently Steelbeak's pastry was really that good.

"What is it with you and this place, anyway?" Negaduck asked him while they stood in the brass-plated lift.  
Steelbeak shrugged. "I haven't gotten by in life by doing things in half measures. I wanted a car so I got 'the' car. I wanted a place in the city so I got 'the' place in the city. I get what I want because I stick out for it and save my money for it through not accepting anything but the barest substitutes in the meantime."  
Negaduck rolled his eyes. "I get everything through conquest."  
"I've played a couple characters who used that strategy and I know it's a lot of fun. You must have a really focused mind."

Negaduck wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not so he just ignored it.

* * *

The lift ride ended and Negaduck followed Steelbeak into a glowing pink corridor and through into a massive studio apartment that was so clean and tidy Negaduck grabbed back instinctively for his chainsaw.

He cursed at it not being there, "Where's the chainsaw outlet in this city?"  
Steelbeak laughed and headed for the kitchen.  
"You seem to think I'm joking."  
"Would you like red, white or gold?"

Negaduck eyed the alcohol bottles labelled 'red', 'white' and 'gold'. "Oh, creative."  
Reading the labels he could tell the conniving ratfink designer running this universe wasn't even trying to hide how fake it was anymore. "Gold."

Steelbeak the actor handed him a spirit glass of 'gold'. Taking a sip, Negaduck discovered he was drinking his favourite brand of whiskey.

"I've been trying to get into my vampire character's headspace." Steelbeak started working in the kitchen.  
"Funny you should put it like that."

Negaduck had a sudden image of himself in a chair with electrodes attached to his head. He hadn't thought of it before, but he'd not had a single complaint over the food and it'd been a perfect cup of coffee every time. Negaduck shuddered. The universal overlord was well and truly in his head.

"I heard a great term the other day," Negaduck turned away from the kitchen and looked around the despicably clean apartment, "Bi-polar; especially the good ones."

* * *

Negaduck skirted around the sofa to look at the chess set on the table. "I thought your game was cards."  
"Cards are for mortals." Steelbeak replied, making noise opening and closing the oven. "Chess is the game of titans."

"Titans!" Negaduck laughed, "It's a square board with a bunch of smaller squares printed on it!" He pointed out, feeling creeped out at the idea of a foot the size of a small house poised over his head.  
"That's what you get for being a realist, Negaduck." Steelbeak came out of the kitchen, "For a vampire, this game board is as big as he can get his head around."

"Really?" Negaduck looked at the poxy little cardboard square. Obviously the mad pink boss was sending him some kind of lame message. "So it's a game board that's the size of St Canard."  
"Maybe bigger." Steelbeak advised as he sat down on the corner of the three seater, "Or maybe smaller. The bigger the vampire is, the bigger the board."

Negaduck sat down on the one seater sofa facing away from the door to the apartment. He took another swig of his whiskey, eyeing the board and the pieces sitting on top of it. "So you're saying this universe is a game board and we're all the pieces."  
"If you actually believe vampires exist, then yes." Steelbeak sipped his red wine. "Anyway, I dragged this board out last night because of the thing my character has with Director Hooter."

"They're on the same side."  
"There are two big vampires and one little St Canard. Can you really be that confident they fit so snugly as that?" And then that thing my character does; the 'sympathetic ear'. He moved the Gosalyn character exactly to where he wanted her to go. He's a conniving weaselling underhanded chess master."  
Negaduck sat back against the sofa back. "You got a point. Your chess set help you with figuring yourself out?"

Steelbeak looked at his board. "Of course there's no game without an opponent." He swiped the pieces off onto the table. "And if he's moving people even after Negaduck's dead then who is his opponent? He's another big vampire." Steelbeak picked out the black and white king pieces and placed them on either side of the board.

"The girl Gosalyn isn't happy with Hooter and so she goes running straight to Steelbeak." Steelbeak picked up a tower piece and put it on the board beside the white king. "Why would Hooter chance on sacrificing that piece to his opponent?" Steelbeak sipped his red wine, "Is she an unimportant piece? Hardly; since she's the heir to St Canard. Or is that me thinking so far into my own character that I can't understand his opponent's game plan?" Steelbeak rubbed his head.

"You're thinking too hard." Negaduck discounted, "When I think Hooter, I think S.H.U.S.H. and that means pawns. He gets anything he wants by throwing enough manpower at the problem."  
"My character doesn't have that." Steelbeak mused, picking up the black and white pawns and lining them up around the black king. "That's why he didn't go after Negaduck. He has to wheel, he has to deal, and he has to always look good because he's so short on pieces."

Negaduck finished his drink. "This is getting old." He warned.

"So how do they fight each other?" Steelbeak stared at the board.

"I don't know, do I?" Negaduck complained, "You're the one who thinks they're fighting at all. In my book if blood isn't getting spilt then it ain't a fight." Negaduck stood up and headed for the door.  
"Wait a minute!" Steelbeak called after him. "You're forgetting dinner."  
Negaduck gripped the handle and twisted. "Pass. I've already had four simulated meals today."

He pushed the door and tumbled out into a wasteland where everything was red.


	8. Bubbling Up

**Bubbling Up**

* * *

Now the world around Negaduck was unashamedly red. To his left was a great scarlet river rushing in torrents, slapping the edge of the bank and frothing into pink peaks. Negaduck looked to his right and saw a black forest burning all the shades of orange. In the far distance before him a maroon volcano spurted hot golden lava and purple smoke. Above him the grey clouds had a pink tinge as they swirled against the deep red sky. The dirt beneath him was a rich burgundy.

Negaduck turned around and saw the door to Steelbeak's apartment pink with the glow of light around the edges.

"Did I catch you off guard?" He called out into the scenery around him. "You couldn't set your game board up fast enough this time, huh?" He folded his arms, gloating over his victory.

The landscape didn't answer. The flames burned, the river churned, the volcano gushed. There wasn't a single darn thing living in this place.

Negaduck ventured further into the red world and sniffed suspiciously. He stepped forward to the edge of the river and looked in. "A river of blood." He turned about. "It looks like your brain space is about ready to cave in, vampire!" He shouted into the burning forest.

There was still no response.

"I get how it is. You're too scared to face me in person." Negaduck headed back to the door and he still got nothing back.

* * *

As he reached for the handle, Negaduck realised what he was doing wrong. He needed to call the vampire by name.

Negaduck gazed at the pink door. So far, this vampire had recreated Herb and Binkie Muddlefoot, the Friendly Four, Launchpad, Steelbeak, Hooter, and Gosalyn ... The house on Avian Way, Morgana's magical wards, and two kids' beds in the third bedroom.

Putting all this together, Negaduck knew who he had to be dealing with. He stepped into the centre of the clearing between the river and the flaming forest.

"Darkwing Duck."

* * *

The ground shook beneath his feet and a vibrant red cloud swirled into shape before him. "Hello, Negaduck. I misplaced you for a bit there." Dark Duck greeted him in a friendly tone. In this red place the vampire's normally blue eyes were purple.

"So it was you that kidnapped me and shoved me in here." Negaduck gritted his teeth; "Ergh. To be done over by you?" He said in mild disgust of himself.

"About that ... I really do owe your Hooter an apology ..."  
Negaduck paused, "Wait, wait, you did him over?"  
Dark Duck paused, "I don't dally with deviousness unless I'm desperate."

"Oh, two for one!" Negaduck chuckled.

* * *

"As much as hearing Hooter got fooled and you're so desperate makes my day I ain't helping you."  
Dark Duck smiled quietly. "Too bad. I guess I will have to survive without your help then."

The moment of glory faded and Negaduck scowled. "You just need me out of the way?"  
"Correct."  
Negaduck sighed. "For what?"

Dark Duck blinked and for a moment, he was at a loss for words.

* * *

"I want to know who the father of my grandchild is."

Negaduck suddenly recalled the highchair in the smashed in kitchen with the clown doll sitting in it and the cot in the bedroom upstairs too.

"My Gosalyn isn't old enough to be a mother yet."  
"Right;" Dark Duck said sarcastically, "And your universe's Steelbeak just told her to get married for her health. P-lease." The vampire rolled his eyes. "You ducks are so blissfully unaware of the world around you."

Negaduck hesitated on demanding he be returned. Dark Duck was no less of a brick wall than any other Darkwing Duck when it came to getting his way. The best Negaduck could hope for was play along until he saw an opportunity to get out of the pink place.

"Alright, so you took me out of the picture," Negaduck frowned, "To create the same situation in my universe as it was in yours."  
"Better than that: This time we won't fail to see the man who is so mad keen on our daughters!"

* * *

The distant volcano spurted more lava and smoke and the flames in the forest grew brighter.

"Right ... but you wrote the script! You already know it all!"

"Oh, Negaduck," Dark Duck smiled at him, "You are so predictable. If you so much as flicked through the middle you would have seen that it was blank."

Negaduck paused. "But I read the ending."  
"The ending is just Gosalyn's choice and I'm chasing a cuckoo impersonator."  
"He might not be a cuckoo in my Negaverse."  
Dark Duck rounded on him, his purple eyes glowing. "It's primordial instinct. With you out of the way that cuckoo will think he's safe enough to expose himself." A wicked grin spread across his face. "Oh, come on, Negaduck; it'll be fun."

Negaduck shook his head, "You're insane."  
"No, I'm a vampire."  
"Well, it's gone to your head."  
"Really? How goes my St Canard river?"  
Negaduck looked over with a discerning eye. "Looks choppy."

Dark Duck's smile froze. "Ye-es. Never mind the reason for that; the point is that I'm a vampire."

* * *

Negaduck shrugged, "So this cuckoo whatever; you think he might burn out your house to get his kid back?"

"No; that's just some vampire exclusive to my universe." Dark Duck discounted. "It's not important."  
"Ri-ight. Your house burns down and it's no big deal."  
"Hey, it's not your house! This isn't stuff you care about so why should I bore you about it?" Dark Duck debated hotly.

"I do care." Negaduck stated sincerely, "I-care-because-you're-so-keen-on-putting-me-off-that-track!"  
"I-am-not!" Dark Duck snapped back, "If you want to take a trip down that track I'd love to share! Watch that re-entry, Negaduck, because things on the other side of that door are about to get dangerous."

"Oh, mighty words." Negaduck sniggered, privately happy for the challenge for a change. He turned around and twisted the doorknob.


	9. Sign of Weakness

**Sign of Weakness**

* * *

Negaduck walked back into Steelbeak's apartment. The scent of baked potato, crisp buttery pastry, cooked green beans and corn hung in the air.

"Ah, there you are." Steelbeak said, "Sorry I've been so busy, find anything in there to interest you, Negaduck?"

Negaduck raised an eyebrow as Steelbeak put the serving dishes out on the table.

"There's a vampire in your closet." Negaduck announced flatly and started dumping food onto his plate.  
"That was a souvenir I got for one of my ex-girlfriends. I was in Quack Quong for The Bridal Wave and I thought of her."  
"Not a single word you just said made any sense." Negaduck mentioned in a conversational tone.  
"Which is probably the biggest reason that I've been single my whole life." Steelbeak served out his own food and started eating.

Negaduck thought it was a little warped, playing this make believe game out with Dark Duck.

"So you were telling me about that chessboard. The bigger the vampire is the bigger the chessboard."  
"Right." Steelbeak answered, "So my question is how to get two vampires to fight each other? I mean, they're vampires. One is older, one is younger. One has a great pile of resources and the other one is pretty much all beak."

Steelbeak dropped his fork, "Of course, it's so obvious!"  
"What?" Negaduck asked with a mouthful of potato and gravy.  
"Well, look around. Titans aren't ruling the Earth these days."  
"Not visibly, anyway." Negaduck returned.  
"So why not?" Steelbeak grinned with his very normal beak. "It's because they weren't infallible. They weren't perfect, they made mistakes, and they had weaknesses!"

Negaduck blinked slowly at Steelbeak. It was kind of what he was thinking earlier when it came to getting out of this pink place. "You're new at this, aren't you?"  
"So you get two vampires to fight by playing them off against each other's weaknesses. Find the weakness, point it out to the other one and hey, the war is on!"

Negaduck speared another chunk of meat and pastry, "So now we just have to find out each vampire's weaknesses. That shouldn't be too hard. Until he catches on to what you're up to and you can't get out of there fast enough."  
"Then don't get in there in the first place." Steelbeak lectured, "Have you never read a spy novel? There are heaps of ways to extract information on the sly."

Negaduck stood up. "You're a Prima Donna, Darkwing; subtle is not your game!" He shoved his chair into the table and stalked off to the door. "Are you right with this now?" He pointed at the door and looked accusingly at Steelbeak, "Or do you need more time?"

"Go right on through, Dorothy." Steelbeak answered. "But before you leave a word of advice."  
Negaduck frowned at him, "What now?"  
"Chainsaw."  
"What about my missing personal effect?"

"You're not into espionage so you'd better find it fast."

* * *

Negaduck slammed the door to Steelbeak's apartment behind him and the walls and floor of the corridor and everything began to shake. "What the-?" A light fixture dropped and he jumped out of the way. Bits of plaster were falling down, streams of dust rained down on him. Picture frames jumped off the walls and crashed down to the floor. The lights were flickering haphazardly, in the distance there was a woman's scream.

The lights went out and Negaduck blinked as the pink world turned into a purple gloom.

Negaduck looked around him at the debris-filled corridor. A window with white billowing curtains he hadn't noticed before was at the far end. The closer end had a metal sheen to it and a square window. Another shriek split the air. All the while, another voice was quietly sobbing.

"I thought this looked familiar." Negaduck skirted around the random bits of debris littering his way towards the door. "Ashdown Asylum. So apparently Darkwing thinks I need to start by talking to loony Lenora."

The purple world reminded Negaduck of Steelbeak's last words. "Find my chainsaw. Well, you're the one who took it off me in the first place." Negaduck tried the handle on the exit door and discovered it locked. "No way out, you're kidding?" Negaduck looked up at the window in the door. It was too high for him to see through it.

Negaduck grunted in annoyance and turned to face the corridor again. The curtain billowed on the other end and doors to the rooms were left and right. "Dumped me right in it, didn't you?" He was privately grateful and made his way up the corridor to the window.

Negaduck pulled apart the curtain and looked down into the Asylum's courtyard. There were about two storeys between him and the cold wet asphalt ground. There were no bars on the window but there wasn't a fire escape to match. If this whole place started burning, everyone along this corridor was dead.

Negaduck turned back to the corridor with all the rooms. "I like it."


	10. Rooms

_A/n: Stop me if you haven't heard this one._

* * *

**Rooms**

* * *

The first door to Negaduck's left was unlocked and swung free to his touch. The stench of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. "Something tells me the nurses haven't checked up on this guy in a while."

Negaduck glanced around and double took the festering corpse lying in the bed under the stained grey sheet. It didn't look like it was getting up anytime soon to give him trouble.

Negaduck momentarily wondered how he'd died and if it wasn't somewhere still lurking around.

The room seemed pretty much a grub hole with clothes littering the floor and dirty dishes inhabiting the top of the chest of drawers by the bed. There really wasn't much to this room and Negaduck was getting bored in the square tomb. He went to the window and looked out across the roof of the Asylum. "Alright, so I'm in the left wing of this fire trap." Negaduck tried the criss-cross bars on the window. He stepped back and regarded the vertical and horizontal bars. "The penitentiary doesn't even get this much security." He shook his head and turned. To his left and along the wall above the desk were postcard sized pictures. Negaduck stepped over and had a look at them. The writing was in a red texter and the pictures were like a four-year-old's but across the wall the reason why this guy had landed in Ashdown was obvious.

"Vampires chasing the poor sucker; I knew there was some reason you wanted me to see this room." Negaduck turned to head towards the door and something caught his eye behind the closet door off its latch. He glanced back at the skeleton to his left and looked again to the closet on the wall opposing him. He listened but the room was silent back at him.

Negaduck sized up the cupboard. It was a small space, so the worst that would come out of it would probably be just another skeleton. Remembering his lesson from earlier, Negaduck eased the gap and stepped to the side of the closet, he took the handle and pulled the door towards him.

An avalanche of objects fell out with heavy bangs and thuds. When the noise stopped, Negaduck looked out from behind the closet door. "Well, this looks interesting." He looked at the pile of junk and grabbed hold of a long stick. It came loose, spreading the mess further across the floor.

Negaduck looked at the thing. "A pogo stick." He grunted, "Well, that ain't my chainsaw." He threw it behind him and foraged through the most together pile of the mess. Behind a plastic jar of peanut butter Negaduck saw the handle of his chainsaw. He grabbed it with delight and pulled.

Negaduck had anticipated weight and fell backwards into the cupboard when the thing he was pulling had no gravity to it at all. He stared at the handle of his chainsaw in his hands. For a moment he felt a flurry of panic. "It's the handle to my chainsaw you pulled apart-my-chainsaw!" Negaduck shrieked.

Behind the door and down the corridor another shriek answered him.

Negaduck took a breath. "This isn't real." He reminded himself, "Slipped my mind for a moment there." He got up "Alright, so I need to find the rest to put it back together." Pocketing the handle of his chainsaw, Negaduck waded through the junk heap and out through the door. "It better not be in too many pieces."

Negaduck paused and returned to the mounds of junk. He looked around and grabbed up the pogo stick again. "Now I feel properly dressed," he stated and shut the door behind him.

Now Negaduck was back in the corridor facing three more doors and a locked exit. "Alright, now I'm bored!" He glared up at the ceiling.

There was a fresh gust of wind and the curtain whipped behind him. Negaduck looked at the glimpse of the night sky and the moon beyond.

"Oh, very funny." He grumbled and turned back to choosing the next room to disturb.

* * *

There were at least three things he was looking for in this place, Negaduck realised; the rest of his chainsaw, the key to the exit door and Lenora. No doubt Darkwing had dropped him up here to see what he could make of her nonsense and right now Negaduck was stuck playing Darkwing's game. He twisted the handle and barged into the next room.

The smell of decay was much fresher in this one. "Where's the fun in this if everyone's already dead?" He complained to the ceiling and went to get a closer look at the corpse on the floor behind the bed.

Negaduck stared at the piece of wood sticking out of his chest. "A ribcage is not armour." Negaduck grabbed the handle end of the stake with his right hand and yanked. There was a little give but it remained stuck in the corpse. "Wow, what are you? Stuck to the floor with this thing?" Negaduck used both hands and pulled. This time the wood came free.

Negaduck looked at the jagged piece of wood in his hands. Someone had cleaved it unevenly in two but it still had much of the appearance of a baseball bat. He turned it around to the round smooth side and read the large swirling writing on the handle. It read 'Gizmoduck'.

Feeling like a piece of wood in a vampire's world was a bit safer than a lousy pogo stick, Negaduck pocketed the Gizmoduck stake. He looked down at the body and flicked it over with his foot. There was a deep indent in the wood of the floor where the stake had gone through. "Whoever did that must have a bit of strength." He decided and started looking around to the personality of the room, "I'm glad I've got the piece of wood now."

Negaduck spied the busy looking desk and started rummaging around the papers there. "No vampire pictures." He looked over to the closet and crossed over to it. He stepped up to the side and opened the door towards him. There was no banging or clanging this time and he ducked his head around. "Empty. Right." He looked around, "there's got to be more in this room other than some guy struck out with a baseball bat."

Returning to the side of the corpse, Negaduck started pulling open the chest of drawers. He yanked out a wad of clothes from the top one, shoved the drawer back, did the same to the next and then in the bottom drawer was the base of his chainsaw. "Yes!" Negaduck grabbed it up and looked at it. He already had the handle; that just left the blade to find. He hugged it and turned around.

He gazed in surprise at the tossed clothes now littering the room. Skirts and pink flannel pyjamas had come from the drawer. "This is a girl's room." He looked back at the corpse now on its back and half under the bed now. "Well, that ain't my Gosalyn." Negaduck walked around the bed and back to the door. He took the handle and looked back at the room and the corpse behind the bed. "So long, dipstick," He snorted and shut the door.

Negaduck looked around the corridor. Two down, two to go. Left to find was one chainsaw blade, one exit key, and one not-so-lucid Lenora. So far so good, so long as these rooms kept coming up with the goods.

Negaduck hesitated at the next door. It was something about the guy with the stake driven straight through him and into the hardwood floor that made him double take his next action. It wasn't really that big a thing, except there was two halves to that baseball bat and Asylum patients were often a bit twitchy if they came off their meds.

Negaduck knocked gently on the door. "Lenora? Gosalyn? Is anybody, whoever you are, in there?"

He twisted the handle and pushed the door open.


	11. Blood Rage

_A/n: Let's Play, M-Rated, here we go!_

* * *

**Blood Rage**

* * *

As Negaduck slowly opened the door he heard the sound of feminine sobbing. In the purple gloom he saw the back of the woman's head of bedraggled hair as she sat on the side of the bed facing the window. She was Gosalyn's size and her hair was the right length and about the right colour in the ghostly dark.

"Gosalyn?"

Hearing him, the woman startled, and straightened, looking up at the window as though she thought he'd called from there.

"Gosalyn," Negaduck repeated, pushing the door firmly open. There was no way she wouldn't guess he was at her door now.

The figure turned and with a blood-curdling shriek she vaulted clear across the bed. Before Negaduck could react, she'd grabbed him by the cuff of his cape and hurled him across the corridor.

There was a spark of pain in his back telling Negaduck that he'd hit the wall. He started to get back up and with two hands the hellish monster raised him clear off the floor.

"Vampire!" Negaduck gasped, seeing the familiar set of canines amidst the row of shorter jagged teeth. He reached back for the baseball bat fragment but the woman's stranglehold tightened. There was an empty blackness in her eyes and she leaned forwards to bite him.

* * *

The vampire jerked and the grip on Negaduck faltered. She looked at him with an almost puzzled expression before shrieking as her body turned grey and then fractured into a fine dust cloud.

"Hello, Negaduck." He heard Gosalyn's voice and a moment later the dust had settled enough that he could see her. Her glossy red hair was short in a bob and she had the other half of the baseball bat in her hands. "Welcome to the Jungle."

"Now you are definitely Gosalyn. Not mine-."  
"Of which I'm sure you're eternally grateful."  
"She would never wear that outfit." He commented on her tight purple T-shirt, green pullover and brown slacks with a blue medical band around her left wrist. You've really let yourself go."  
"Oh, I'm sorry; did the spare tyre say something?" Gosalyn sneered at him, "What are you doing in Ashdown Asylum, Negaduck, are you nuts?"  
"I'm not the one who lives here." He sneered back at her.

"Nice comeback, did your mother help you with that one?" Gosalyn retorted.  
"Not really. She's been dead over twenty five years."  
Gosalyn folded her arms and stood back from him. "It's so sweet that you're counting."  
"So much spirit; you're starting to 'bug' me." Negaduck gritted at her in warning.  
"Oh, it must hurt knowing that I don't care even a teensy bit for you." Gosalyn returned in a patronizing voice.

Negaduck paused. "For a mental ward inmate you're pretty snappy. A place like this ought to have whittled you down to size."  
"Oh, get on with it, old man; I've got places to go and so many more things to kill."  
Negaduck blinked, "You killed one of those guys back there, right?"  
"That was personal." Gosalyn defended darkly.  
"Sure, kid. So what did the other one die of?"  
"Brain haemorrhage. He was a good guy. I miss him. Let's go, I'm done here."

Gosalyn turned away from him and headed smartly towards the exit.

"No you're not!" Negaduck called after her and stopped her in her tracks. "You, little miss, are missing the key to that door." He pointed at the metal exit door.

Gosalyn's face was livid when she spun around to face him.

* * *

With her teeth clenched, Gosalyn looked ready to jump him just like the vampire had a minute ago.

"And you'll just have to suffer the wait because I'm not leaving this place without my chainsaw blade!" Negaduck added to drive home his argument.

The death look disappeared from Gosalyn's eyes. "The jerk swallowed it. Darn, where's an axe when you need one?" Gosalyn turned and headed up the corridor. "Why is it that when I have my axe I don't need it and then-?"

Negaduck stepped into the shrieking vampire's room and started his search with the closet. He opened it and heard glass shattering in the room next door. The cupboard was bare so Negaduck crossed to the chest of drawers and pulled them open. They were empty too. Negaduck looked around the room again. The drawers in the table were too small.

* * *

"What's the matter with you, Negaduck?" Gosalyn interrupted from the doorway. "I've broken a window and done a home autopsy and you're still standing there looking pretty."

"If you're so smart why don't you find the blade?" Negaduck growled at her.  
"Hmm, let's see. Is it about half a metre long?"  
"Yes."  
"Does it have jagged metal teeth along the edge?"  
"You know what a chainsaw blade looks like!" He quacked at her. "It's metal and flat with jagged teeth!"

"Just a long shot." Gosalyn folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe, "But have you checked for it under the bed?" She asked him in a sickly sweet sing-song voice that reminded Negaduck too much of her father.  
Negaduck knelt down and snatched the blade from under the bed, "You know if that wasn't helpful I'd be-."

"So you've got your blade, Negaduck. Now if you don't move your sorry carcass, I'm-leaving-you-behind-with-the-dust-bunnies!" Gosalyn quacked and stormed out of his view.

* * *

Negaduck stepped out from behind the bed and hurried to catch up with Gosalyn.

"Look, kid, I don't know what your issue is, but I'm the one in charge." He told her as she twisted the key in the lock.  
"Then push off and stop following me around like a geeky space cadet. Sheesh." Gosalyn shoved open the door.  
"Geek!" Negaduck spluttered furiously.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, that was a bad call. Geeks are up at the professional end of the dork range and you're more on the dweeb side of dork." She twisted on her foot and breezed out through the open door.  
"Why you redheaded-!" Negaduck growled and chased after her into the stair well.

"Shush." She hissed and held out her hand in warning to quieten him.

Negaduck looked around the stairwell but couldn't see anything. He listened harder and heard something scuffling down below. "There are two storeys and a basement level." He said quietly.  
"Shut up." She hissed at him, "You think I'd check myself into this building without knowing the floor plan? What kind of moron do you take me for? Come on." She started down the stairs.

Negaduck followed after her, putting the pieces of his chainsaw together as he went. "Seriously, why did you come to this place? Clearly it ain't for the meds."  
"Because, Megavolt-." She started to explain.

"I'm Negaduck! Megavolt and I are nothing alike!"

"Sorry, whatever. The reason I came here is because I keep losing it. I came here to try to cool off but they just keep coming for me and keep me wound up like, I dunno, something really twitchy."

She kept heading down the stairs, "You thought that was me on that bed crying, didn't you?"  
"The story goes that you lost your whole family in a fire."  
"Fire, pfft, yeah, right. That was just a protection ward that went off in Raya's room. It took out about five of the wretches nosing around. It would've really made her day knowing that she got that many-argh!" Gosalyn ended in a yell, "I'm up here, you brain-drains, you know you can just shadow up here to get me?"

Negaduck pulled the cord of his chainsaw and it didn't start. Looking, he saw the tank gauge reading empty. "Darkwing!" He gritted his teeth.

"He's dead, Negaduck, time to get over it."

* * *

Negaduck dodged a snatching arm of a body that came out of nowhere, grabbed the wrist and shoved the vampire hard. Negaduck raised his silent chainsaw and belted the closest vampire with the butt. There was a shriek behind him and then a piece of wood went hurtling past him into one of the vampires.

The remaining vampire snarled and started forwards. Gosalyn pushed past Negaduck and with a yell she smashed her fist into the vampire's chest and yanked. Negaduck caught a glimpse of the vampire's heart in her hand before it turned to dust along with the vampire.

Gosalyn let out a sigh of relief and brushed her hands together to wipe the dust off. "That feels better. I'm hungry. Let's go get something to eat." She turned and continued down the staircase.

Negaduck was impressed and followed Gosalyn out of Ashdown Asylum in silence.


	12. Back to Clockwork

**Back to Clockwork**

* * *

As they walked through the silent early morning streets it wasn't long at all before Darkwing Duck's high-spirited kid started to bug Negaduck again. Being able to dust a vampire with her bare hands couldn't make up for the fact that Gosalyn opened her beak with the sole purpose of annoying Negaduck.

Negaduck stopped on a corner, looking at the green painted petrol station across the junction. "I need to fuel my chainsaw up."  
"Good luck at this time in the morning, sunshine, because all the pumps are locked down." Gosalyn snorted and continued to walk on.

Negaduck stopped and folded his arms. They were heading, he realised, back towards Fireworks Studios. "If I knew you were leading me back to Darkwing's flaming cuckoo gambit I'd of-!"  
"What?" Gosalyn quacked hotly back at him, "Sheep get shorn; it's your fault what you do!"  
Negaduck frowned, watching her flushing red beneath her feathers. "Cuckoo bothering you?"  
Gosalyn glanced back to the gate of the lot. "Moot point," she dismissed and turned away, heading back into the lot.

"What is with you Negaduck? A 'kill-me-now' fashion sense and nag, nag, whine, whine. Oh, I'm in charge, oh, I don't care which guys turn up to win my daughter ..."  
"Shut up." Negaduck warned from behind her.  
She turned to give him a dirty look from over her shoulder, "Oh, sorry, 'ward' isn't it? It was circumstances that threw you two together, not some common spark of anything. No, you'll give your last death rattle before you do anything dad like."

"I don't whine," a steaming Negaduck gritted, then he realised her other insult. "Hey! What's wrong with my clothes?" He called across the distance between them.  
Gosalyn turned around. She was halfway up the studio's central drive. "Not that I'm calling myself the fashion expert," She called back to him, "but fifteen years and you never thought about going for something a little less conspicuous to the tall dark and fangy?"

Negaduck glared furiously back at Gosalyn. "It's only been ten years and that'd be saying something to everyone else and over my dead body am I ever gonna say that."  
"What's that exactly?"  
"That I'm backing down."  
"I guess it doesn't matter now that you're dead and all." Gosalyn headed off to the breakfast carts.

For half a second Negaduck mulled over that last statement. As far as he was concerned, either Gosalyn was playing to the script or she was just another one of Dark Duck's daydreams. She seemed pretty realistic. Just like the delicious smell of buttered crumpets, honey and fresh coffee. Hungry, Negaduck followed after her.

* * *

Negaduck got himself a plate of hot food and a cup of coffee and joined Gosalyn who was chowing down a large plate of hot food at the table. "Don't tell me you're going back to that nut job routine."

"For your information, Steelbeak-."

"Negaduck!" He quacked at her and thumped his fist on the table, making Gosalyn snatch her plate before it went flying. "Cut it out you punk kid!"  
Gosalyn giggled, glancing down at the mess of coffee on the table now. "I just had to see if I could do it again; the look on your face is so totally priceless. Plus I could go a round with you; it might loosen me up a bit." She shoved the rest of the Danish into her beak.

Negaduck smiled quietly back at her and yanked out his chainsaw, wielding it with suggestive menace before Gosalyn's eyes. "I just need to go fill up my chainsaw and I'll be right back."

Gosalyn rolled her eyes and swallowed, "I am a nut job, just not the babbling loon or the pathetically sobbing variety. Yeah; as if crying is going to help me. I have a freaking vampire on my case. Nah, I'll probably be dead before I get the chance to weep."

Negaduck finished off a hash brown, "How do you reckon we go about killing that vampire then?"

Gosalyn grunted unhappily, looking at the last of her food, "First thing is to find the vampire and I don't suppose his minions will quit spawning behind my back in the meantime. They don't just show up when I get a good clue; no, they show up because they want me."

"That's a good start." Negaduck stood up with the coffeepot in mind, "So why are they after you then?"  
"I don't know; to rub injury into insult, maybe?" Gosalyn stood up. "I gotta go pretty myself up. Your Gosalyn is a real internal bleeder."

With his fresh coffee Negaduck sat back at the table and sipped for the moment, thinking over the redheaded youngster's words. His Gosalyn was internally bleeding ... from losing him.

Clearly the biggest job in this Darkwing hole was to get out of it and back into the Negaverse.

* * *

"Sound stage thirteen in ten minutes, everyone. Has anyone seen Lenora?" Sarah asked.

Ignoring Sarah's question, Negaduck finished his coffee and stood up. If this script was a window then he'd better check and see how it was going in his absence.

"I'd better try the make up trailer." Sarah finally decided for herself and left.

Negaduck looked around to see who the rest of 'everyone' was. Bill, this artificial universe's pink edition of Herb Muddlefoot, was talking to a new person Negaduck hadn't seen before. The newbie was a trim looking fox with black tipped ears and tail. Was this the megalomaniac from the end of the script?

Negaduck got to the coffee machine for a third cup in the absence of sleep and found himself closer to the conversation.

"How do you expect me to perform under these conditions?" The actor gestured furiously.  
"What's the problem, Terloise?" Bill asked kindly.  
"There's no popcorn machine in my trailer."

Negaduck dropped his coffee with a splatter and pushed over the table blocking his path to get to them. "I've met a lot of pansies in my time but that's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard!" He snapped at the fox. "We're all stuck in this darn place but if you keep that up I'll make sure to give you an early exit!"  
"I am-!" The fox started.  
"Nobody!" Negaduck finished for him, "I don't know you, never met you, don't care about you except about how much you're annoying me right now and boy has that gotten old fast!"

Instantly forgetting their conversation, Terloise's eyes fixed on a point behind Negaduck, "Who is she? She's beautiful."

Negaduck turned to see Gosalyn in a dress the colour of a strawberry milkshake complete with vanilla ice cream shoulder puffs. At this moment she was doing her Lenora routine looking wistfully up at the clouds in the sky.

"She's on loan from the loony bin," Negaduck answered.  
"Really?" Terloise looked interestedly in Negaduck, "How'd she get in there?"  
Negaduck shrugged, "Seeing their whole family killed before their eyes tends to put a lot of people on edge."  
"It does." Terloise answered and left Negaduck to go talk to Lenora.

"Nice work, Negaduck." Bill said gratefully to him. "For a minute there I thought we were going to need a new actor."  
"Oh, yeah?" Negaduck eyed Bill and his green and pineapple shirt, sensing Dark Duck hiding beneath the surface, "What's it worth then?"

Bill consulted his clipboard. "A bonus round. Sarah, how are those lights for this next sequence going?" He hurried off.

"A bonus round." Negaduck scoffed. "How magnanimous. Stinking vampire."

* * *

Negaduck followed the rest of Dark Duck's daydreams to sound stage thirteen.

As yesterday, it was the interior part of the stone stadium set. This time the Friendly Four were trying to convince Gosalyn that interviewing the contestants was a better idea than letting them fight. Since it was a given that the rejects would keep arguing until Gosalyn gave in, Negaduck's interest was pushing negative zero.

Negaduck found himself doubting. Was the script really true to life? Take after take of the Friendly Four explaining their whole plan to Gosalyn and it didn't seem so to Negaduck. Especially since his Gosalyn was just as clever as any other Gosalyn. She was just a social deviant like any other Gosalyn.

Negaduck looked for someone to complain to and Jane was in the chair beside him. "Why is this taking so long?"  
"Because you're travelling at the speed of thought and they're not."  
"Yeah? Negaduck queried, "Last night happened pretty fast."  
"That happens to a lot of us. It's normal."

Negaduck gaped at her for a moment as the answer sunk in. "... I get it, oh, very funny, Darkwing. You know you've got the sense of humour of a four year old, right?"  
"Negaduck, you don't understand; this is the short cut. It's devious, underhanded and manipulative with an imprecise payoff. I can't wait around forever until the day everything clicks into place."  
"Yes you can." Negaduck paused, looking at Jane, "You haven't been this impatient since you became a vampire."

"Yes, Negaduck, you are right; someone is moving my chess piece for me." Jane answered impassively.  
"Oh, that must be embarrassing." Negaduck cooed at Jane.  
Jane only smiled back at Negaduck. "Share and share alike."  
"Yuck." Negaduck growled, "Don't you test me, you stupid vampire! Who is pushing you around?"

Jane looked away towards the set where Megavolt was explaining to Gosalyn how to operate the camera setup. "I want to be ready with that ballpark answer when she wakes up."  
"She's not awake?" Negaduck scowled. "Haven't we been at this for days now?"  
"No. Time really is this slow." Jane gazed over at the set. "She'll wake up and she'll find out that she's a mother and she'll need to see me confident; not weakened under the worrying weight of a world of possibilities. If I'm strong, she'll be strong and the world will keep on turning."

"Don't get all proverbial with me, Darkwing." Negaduck rolled his eye at Jane. "Alliterate on your own time. Why can't you just nail the guy in your own universe anyway?"  
"Because, Negaduck. My universe has piranha in it and they're swimming in my St Canard and gulping it down. You've had a sample of what they're like. They-."

"A place is only as good as its management." Negaduck interrupted with a snigger and folded his arms.  
Jane's face grew hard and she glared at Negaduck. "You have no idea what I'm up against!" She retorted furiously.  
"Sure I do, Darkwing." Negaduck answered smugly, "they jump up stairs, and they fly in through windows. They spawn behind you wanting to rip your throat out and they don't have souls and they're doing it all for some big league boss. I've been taking notes."

"More to the point; they stampeded over the whole crime scene like a herd of zombies!" Jane steamed. "Thanks to them there's nothing left of the man I'm after other than an embryonic egg. It's going to take time even just waiting around for it to hatch."  
"Gee, what a shame." Negaduck said in sarcasm, rolling his eyes.

"Here," Jane dug into her jeans pocket and handed Negaduck a pink-tinged box of matches. "Consider it therapy."  
"I still need fuel. For my chainsaw. By the way."

"There was a can in the last room at the asylum. You didn't get to it because you let my Gosalyn trounce on you with her full technicolour rage."  
"She's your daydream!" Negaduck objected.  
"And that's how I imagine her given the circumstances." Jane returned. "I'll see what I can do later for you, Negaduck." Jane answered and crossed her arms, sinking heavily into her chair. "I know how much you miss it."  
"So why take it off me in the first place?"  
"Well, habit."  
Negaduck rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. The stone stage action was still slowly not happening. Talking to his captor was the only way out of this faux mess.

"You know what sort of information I'm going to get from my grandchild, Negaduck?" Jane grumbled.  
"Yeah." Negaduck answered simply. "That you're not as experienced with kids as you thought you were."  
"Exactly! In five words: Nothing relevant to the case."  
"Urk. You and your stupid mysteries," Negaduck grunted in disapproval. "You don't care who you step on while you're playing detective."

"Cut, everyone, let's break for tea." Herb called out.

"Oh, here, now we're getting somewhere." Jane enthused.  
"Getting somewhere how? They just took a break." Negaduck discounted.  
"Yes, no, we take the break while they wait for ... let me put it another way: look behind you, Negaduck." Jane stood up and walked behind the row of chairs.

Negaduck swivelled himself in his chair to see a milling group of men he'd never seen before at the coffee cart. Short, tall, thick, thin, dogs, ducks, a rooster, a pig ... Most of them had some muscle to them although a couple were very lean. These were the challengers after his Gosalyn.

Heat coursed through Negaduck and he jumped up, throwing his chair away and ready to take on the punks. "Let me at them!"  
"Negaduck, you're a guest in my head." Herb's voice spoke with a laugh behind him. "If you want to take out the walking cardboard cut-outs, knock yourself out."

"Argh!" Negaduck spun around to glare at Bill or Herb now standing there in his green and pineapple shirt. "Send me back out there!"  
"I'm not sure how to put this politely." Bill mused. "But she's not a little girl anymore." Bill's face went hard, "And I want my perpetrator!"

Muted by his captor's inescapable vampire logic, Negaduck scowled and looked back at the milling motley bunch. Bashful, Dopey, Sleazy, Grumpy. Just like Bushroot had warned Quackerjack the punks were all on their best behaviour and it was impossible to tell them apart because of it.

Suddenly Negaduck flashed an idea on how to get out of the vampire's daydream. Since he didn't care about what Darkwing wanted he wasn't about to stand in the way. The real issue Negaduck saw was with the man on the last page of the script.

He turned to Sarah walking past. "Hey, let's make a deal." Negaduck offered her. "We want different things-."  
"Do we?" Sarah smiled at him and continued walking.  
"Alright, Darkwing, that's just annoying. Enough is just too much." Negaduck glared as Sarah's tail disappeared into the crowd following the rest of her. This was not a time to be drinking imaginary coffee with the other playmates; this was a time for action. Negaduck had necks to throttle and Darkwing Dunce was blocking him on purpose.

* * *

"Places everyone!" Herb said and came and sat down near Negaduck.

Negaduck sat heavily down on the canvas chair that Jane had been sitting on. "What I want is more important then questioning the parentage of some stupid egg that hasn't even hatched yet."

Lenora fetched Negaduck's old chair from the floor and sat down beside him. "They're all big and muscle-y and sinister looking. Aren't they?"  
That was a Nega-Gosalyn line, Negaduck eyed her. "Aren't you supposed to be on the stage?"  
"I am; I'm the camera." She pointed to the camera hanging from the roof. "You know, it'll look really cool on the other side because it actually works and they'll use it for some of the shots."  
"Yeah, whatever," Negaduck rolled his eyes. "Have you actually ever thought for one minute that I might be the one that's right this time and this is really all about you being selfish and inconsiderate?"

"Shush, we're getting to the good bit!"

Negaduck couldn't be any more disinterested in the Friendly Four and Steelbeak sitting down in their stone interview room.

"And action!" Bill called out.

Negaduck growled, "Will you cut out the movie tripe!" He demanded, got up and knocked down a camera tripod. He stomped aggressively on it and reached for his matchbox.

Then he froze as the door on the set opened.


	13. Ninja Cuckoo

**Ninja Cuckoo**

* * *

Under Doctor Bushroot's command the roots of nearby redwood titans had delved and dug out the earth to make this granite stone and clay conference room for the Friendly Four.

Staring as the stone door opening from the outside, Negaduck felt rage. He grabbed the tripod legs of the camera stand for a weapon and paused as the short, punk chiwawa came through the doorway. His head fur was tinged green and he had rings in his ears. The tattered leather jacket, fingerless gloves and ragged trousers and T-Shirt completed his look.

Negaduck stepped forwards and swung the tripod at the punk. The dog fell over and got back up just like nothing had happened and started saying his 'Hi, how are you' lines to the Friendly Four. Looking back to the Friendly Four and forward again to the punk teenager, Negaduck suddenly realised they were all staring straight through him like he wasn't there.

"Stupid doll!" Negaduck bellowed at the dog. How was he going to straighten this mess that was happening in the Negaverse out when he was stuck in this fake pink place playing with Dark Duck's imaginary chess set? The scene was all a setup and Negaduck couldn't put a dent in the real thing so long as he was in this place.

Negaduck glared around at the Friendly Four, at Steelbeak by their side, at the punk opposite them and at the others standing on the edge of the lighting circle making up the 'camera crew'. Standing there Negaduck would have liked to beat some sense into these losers, only he wanted to knock the sense out of his universal twin a whole heap more right now. And for that Negaduck needed to outwit him.

"You're a real pain in my side, Darkwing." Negaduck gritted, dropping the tripod.

Binkie Muddlefoot stepped onto the stage and folded her arms. "I assure you that the feeling is quite mutual, Mister Negaduck, however it seems I'm the only one who has succeeded in doing something about it at this present point in time. Why don't you go play with your matches, dear? It might cheer you up."  
Negaduck folded his arms. "So how about some gas then ... boss?"  
Binkie tsked, "I am rather a little busy right now, Negaduck; I have all these scurrilous savages to scr-."  
"Get a life!" Negaduck quacked.

The stage area was quiet for a moment as Dark Duck silenced his alliteration slip.

Then suddenly Binkie pulled up a spare collapsible canvas chair and sat down beside Herb. "Quite." She said pleasantly and straightened her tweed skirt and jacket.

Negaduck growled in frustration and gave a last kick at the green haired punk before marching up to the Muddlefoot duo sitting in the chairs. In any universe these two were like duck-sized rocks. Doing like all the other pebbles and boulders in the world; doing nothing to make it take another shape. Letting the forces around them shape them instead. Whatever tide was in, these two went with the flow. If Darkwing was facing them off against Negaduck it was the equivalent of a door slam in the face. With an unhappy grunt, Negaduck spun around to watch the next suitor make his acquaintance with the Friendly Four.

* * *

_The next youngster came tentatively in through the stone doorway. The terrier seemed lost and out of his league. He'd really scrubbed up clean for this interview and greenhorn inexperience showed with his uneasy gait._

_"Hi? Is Gosalyn here?"_  
_"She'll be here later. We just want to talk to you first, get to know you."_  
_"Well, uh, I like skulls, and-."_

"Erp, wrong, next." Gosalyn said loudly from her chair on the far right.

However it wasn't 'next', and they had to wait another five questions and another ten takes.

Negaduck sat down next to Gosalyn. "Why'd you say 'next'?" He finally asked getting bored enough as the interview dragged on for what seemed like an eternity.  
"Too slow. The one in my universe killed three eggmen."  
"That's interesting." Negaduck stared at Gosalyn in the chair alongside him, "So he's not a weakling in your universe then."  
Gosalyn shrugged, "Right, because Bushroot's not slow that makes him a real tough guy."  
Negaduck folded his arms and slouched back in his chair. "At any rate this ain't the egomaniac I'm looking for to pound."

* * *

_A musclebound gym junky duck was next to come through the door._

_"Hi? Gosalyn not here yet?"_  
_"She'll be here later. We just want to talk to you first, get to know you."_  
_The youngster folded his arms, "I am Lars, fixer of cars."_

"Nope." Gosalyn by Negaduck's side stated, "Too normal. The one in my universe left without so much as a 'how you do' to the surveillance cameras."  
Negaduck hissed, patronizing, "Oh, that's got to sting. Your favourite anti-crime-tech; slammed by a Ninja cuckoo."  
"Ninja? Possibly. But this guy? Still no."

* * *

_Honker Muddlefoot dressed in his usual chain and leather outfit stormed into the room past the gym junky and put his hands on his hips. "You know who I am, chumps." He challenged the Friendly Four. "So when is this thing going down?"__  
_"___Midnight__," Megavolt answered.__  
_"I'll be there." Honker answered._  
_"Yeah?" The gym duck turned around from the door. "Me too, and I'm taking you out this time, Muddlefoot."_  
_Honker snorted with laughter, "Oh, yeah, sure, I'm real scared, scuzzball; I'm quaking." Honker shoved him aside and stormed out of the room. Lars followed him out with a disapproving grunt.__

Negaduck sat back in surprise. "Did you see that coming?"

"I'm a vampire, Negaduck; biology hits me whether I ignore it or not. The question is on his ability to follow it through. The Honker in my universe would have to puff himself up pretty big to show up on my Gosalyn's radar."  
"You're telling me that you're not upset over your daughter being bird-dogged at all?"  
"I'm a bit over it." The image of Gosalyn sitting beside him in the vanilla and pink princess dress folded her arms.  
"You're not upset?" Negaduck rephrased, "You're chasing a guy for doing a job on an egg but not for having the hots for your kid?"

"You're missing the next guy."

"Fine, I don't want to talk to you anyway, you freak." Negaduck turned around and watched a six foot tall small time crook about ten or twenty years older than Gosalyn talking to the Friendly Five. "Oh, geez, not Dan Gander. Do something you morons don't just sit there."

"You don't like the cut of this guy, Negaduck?" Gosalyn asked him.  
"I know Dan Gander. He's only after the management role. If he gets it he's going to realise that he can't just give Gosalyn the flick. Then he'll have a traumatic fit and take a walk."

* * *

_The popcorn crazed fox that Negaduck had torn through earlier strode up to stand in front of the Friendly Four._

_"Why am I here?" He demanded to know, "I'm looking for a girl with red hair all up in curls. She's not here so why have you lied to get me here?"__  
_"She'll be here later." Quackerjack explained politely. "We just want to talk to you first and get to know you. Could we possibly start with your name?"_  
_"You're wasting my time. Why are you meddling?"__

_The Friendly Four glanced at each other. "Maybe you could tell us what you do for a living." Megavolt suggested.__  
_The interviewee spread his feet and put his hands on his hips. "My family are the biggest cattle farmers on the eastern coastline; that's who I am. We run ten thousand head of cattle spread across five states. Your food," He pointed accusingly at Megavolt, "Is my business."__

"I think I'm going to throw up." Gosalyn whimpered.  
"Hey! Not on me you don't." Negaduck warned. "This guy's worse than Honker. I mean, my Honker."

_Steelbeak stood up to take the challenge, "How old are you?"__  
_"That is a superficial question."_  
_"Age isn't important to you?"_  
_"Are you getting to know me or are you doing an interrogation?" The fox retorted.__

"Heck!" Gosalyn exclaimed. "What? What have I missed, Steelbeak?" She asked in alarm.  
"He sounds like your Gosalyn, Darkwing."  
"He does! How is that even possible?"

_"I'm very sorry." Bushroot apologised for Steelbeak, "He was just a little confused since to him age and time are measures of the same thing."_  
_"Age has nothing to do with anything." The fox declared.__  
_"Won't you tell us something else about yourself?"_  
_"What time do you think you will be finished with your self-gratification session that I can return to see Gosalyn or shall I play it by ear?"_  
_"___Midnight__!" Steelbeak snapped, "But you might not find it so easy!"_

_The suitor turned and strolled out through the doorway._

_Bushroot twisted about to his friends with a look of concern on his face. "Are you alright, Steelbeak?"__  
_"No, I'm not alright; someone's been whispering in my ear. Hooter!"_  
_James G Hooter stepped onto the set. "Hello? I didn't think I was invited."_  
_"You are now." Steelbeak frowned and pointed towards the door. "Is he yours?"__

_Hooter looked over to the doorway where the afternoon sunlight streamed distantly, "No. I think to take it as legitimate that his family are cattle farmers. All this daylight about; it's setting me on edge. I know that you delight in these close encounters, Steelbeak, but I would rather you did not share them with me."_

_Liquidator sang cheerily: "If you're not on edge then you're taking up too much space."__  
_"You're right, Lick." Steelbeak let out a sigh. "Oh, wow, does that guy know how to push beaks out of joint or what?"__

_"I think we all need to take a break and calm down a little." Quackerjack declared, "We all want what's best for Gosalyn, but it's up to her to decide what 'best' is."_

"Cut everyone, lunchtime."

* * *

Negaduck stood up in a rather a good mood and stretched. He looked down at Gosalyn, doubled over and scowling as she sat on the chair.

"Ha, so you missed something, huh, Darkwing? Well that isn't exactly new. Hey, maybe you can figure out what Steelbeak's got in his head over a bowl of chuck steak stew, huh?"  
Gosalyn turned to him, her eyes glinting. "I don't think so." She growled, "We've got a mental half hour before real time catches up and there are other elements of this case that need thinking about. I believe it's time we revisit the cause of my nightmare, Negaduck."

A moment later and the set, the stage and everything fractured and flew away from Negaduck's vision.


	14. Vampire Zero

**Ramrod**

* * *

Negaduck was standing on the mostly stable layer of debris in a new wasteland, this one of varying tones of purplish grey. Negaduck turned to check which of Darkwing's puppets were with him and it was Gosalyn back in her brown trousers, purple tank top and green jacket.

Gosalyn scowled back at him. "What?"  
"This reminds me of St Canard Tower rooftop." Negaduck smiled at the rubble and decay. "One thing about Gosalyn is the kid really knows how to clean up."  
"Well, I'm glad to oblige your trip down memory lane, Negaduck."

She started off in a direction, dodging between the uneven piles of debris. "Oh, yes, very clean," Gosalyn said sarcastically.  
Negaduck laughed and brushed past a stack of abandoned white goods. "Hey, I'm beginning to warm to him. He takes you out of the picture and he knows how to redecorate."  
Gosalyn was silent following him through the refuse for a minute.

"I don't think even you would like this very much, Negaduck." She answered finally. "You can't rule a dead city. There's nobody here left to fear or admire you. There's no one to talk to at all."  
Negaduck paused as he saw the point of a tiled rooftop peaking up over the piles in front of him and looked back at Gosalyn. "Wait a sec." He frowned in thought. "Are you saying everyone in the city is dead?"  
"Yep." Gosalyn stopped and folded her arms, looking sternly at him.  
"So this vampire that you're imagining kills off St Canard?"  
"With his zombie vampires; as previously seen before in the Ashdown Asylum; yes."

"He'd have to be a pretty big moron to kill off his whole entire food supply."

"Of course he doesn't mean to do that." Gosalyn sighed, "It's just a 'side effect' of his great grand plan. Kind of like the side effects of using the Ramrod on S.H.U.S.H."  
"I didn't know vampires were running that joint!" Negaduck objected. "Back then I didn't even know vampires existed!" Negaduck gritted. "If I'd known that I'd have done it in the daytime."  
"Exactly." Gosalyn chirruped brightly, "You're a big moron too, just like this guy. Now come on let's go."

* * *

Negaduck turned around the next stack of debris and found himself side by side with Gosalyn facing an oriental style temple taking up three office blocks.

"Wow, you sure dreamed that big enough." Negaduck stated over the size of the thing, "So the vampire is in here?"  
"Yep." She continued staring up at the thing. "Some of them wear robes like the Quackestrian monks so I figure it'll be something like this."

"Got any gasoline?" Negaduck asked politely.  
"Huh? Oh, here." The distracted Gosalyn pulled a small can out of her trouser pocket and handed it to Negaduck.  
He filled up his chainsaw and pocketed the half empty can.

"Care to knock?" Gosalyn asked him.  
Negaduck grinned at her and yanked the starter cord. "My pleasure." He replied over the roar of his chainsaw starting up.

Negaduck kicked in the door and immediately two vampires erupted from the mouth of the door. He swung his chainsaw and sliced one almost in half. It started getting back up off the ground and he took off its head. Negaduck glanced up at the door and then looked properly at Gosalyn. She'd dusted her vampire but now she was frowning at the building in far away thought.

"Hey, wake up!" He quacked. "Darkwing Duck!"  
"Huh? Sorry, I think." Gosalyn turned to him for a moment to explain. "This is a bit ... real."  
Negaduck followed after Gosalyn up the steps. "It's your daydream." He pointed out.  
"Well, yeah, but right now I'm working through Gosalyn's psychology which is great talking to you but not so great with vampire zero."

"Zero." Negaduck ducked as a vampire reached out from behind a nearly invisible stair banister. He beheaded it with his chainsaw and turned back to Gosalyn, "If she's not doing so great then why don't you just go back to being yourself?"  
"Negaduck, only Gosalyn can do this. In his territory, I'm the hostile vampire. I can't see this place, don't know what's inside and I certainly can't get in."

"So you're completely making this stuff up."  
"Let me introduce you to the world of detection." Gosalyn said casually. "You recreate the whole thing by starting with the obvious." Gosalyn stomped past him. She kicked through the double doors and they splintered open.

"Want to see the next thing in the line of obvious thoughts, Negaduck?"

* * *

Negaduck shrugged and joined her. They headed through the great large hall, towards the double doors on the other side.

From out of thin air two vampires materialised in front of them.  
"Please leave." Gosalyn asked in a friendly voice.  
The vampires stared blankly at them.  
"They're not exactly getting your point." Negaduck raised his chainsaw.

They downed two and four more spawned around them. Negaduck paused after dusting his third one and saw the number of incoming was doubling again and again. "Darkwing, what the heck!" He managed to get out of his beak before he was in the middle of another fight.

Negaduck found himself back to back with Gosalyn in a small empty circle, a crowd of vampires surrounding them. "Darkwing, will you cut it out?"  
"Cut? Cut what out?" Gosalyn said dazedly.  
Negaduck groaned, watching the room getting even more crowded. "They're still spawning around us!"

"And why exactly is this 'my' fault?"

"Because this is your head, you idiot!" Negaduck quacked back.  
"But that's what they'd do in real life. We have to work with realistic principles or the-."  
"Shut up!" Negaduck balled up his inner fury, grabbed Gosalyn by the shoulders of her green jacket and shook her; "You and your stupid chess game."

Gosalyn pulled back and straightened her clothes, "Well done complaining, Negaduck, if this was the real thing we'd both be beyond dead."  
"I don't play losing hands." Negaduck dismissed. "This deck is rigged so I'm not playing anymore." Tired of the game, Negaduck put his chainsaw away.

"Negaduck, I'm in the middle of the problem of how Gosalyn can get through this mess."

"Fine, I'll solve your problem right now." Negaduck looked around at all the silent frozen and blank faces as he reached into his vest for the gas can. Negaduck opened up the lid and splashed the contents at a couple of nearby vampires.

"But, Negaduck, that-."

"Oh, but that's too evil, Negaduck." Negaduck tsked sadistically as he struck a match and lit the vampires up. "Guy burns down your house and you're still playing fair. Well; see vampire zero care." Negaduck gestured around them at the burning screaming vampires. The hall emptied with a fading flaming screech and the way to the door they'd been trying for was clear.  
"Negaduck, you know that only worked because they're shovelheads, right?" Gosalyn complained. "Set a properly trained vampire such as myself on fire and you know he'll only laugh at you."  
"Will you shut up?" Negaduck grizzled, "It worked to clear the room, didn't it? Negaduck 100, vampires 0. Now let's get going."

* * *

Through the doors they walked into a large study room with bookshelves reaching up two levels. A globe stood beside the mahogany desk and the carpet was the colour of grass.

In the centre of the floor was a square rug and a small redheaded duckling smiled up at Negaduck and Gosalyn.

"Mummy."

"Ugh." Negaduck felt squeamish, "I think I could throw up."

"My sentiments exactly," Gosalyn agreed. She walked further into the room and skirted around the child that looked quite a bit like her. "I mean, he kills a whole family and oops; he's missed one. Then he spends who knows how many years trying to fix that mistake and then whoops; now there are two to worry about."

"And you reckon he'd go after this here kid?"

"You did, oh, Lord Negaduck." Gosalyn gazed at him pointedly. "You saw the Ramrod, figured out that Gosalyn had the arming code and the rest is history."  
Negaduck gestured angrily at the duckling on the mat playing with a handheld computer game. "This kid ain't got no arming code and there are no global conquest type weapons lying around for me to see. What? Is this kid meant to grow up and somehow turn nuclear? Where did you dream that idea up?"

"Because …?" Gosalyn stopped, thinking hard on this question. "Because … because the big moron vampire is scared! That's why!" Gosalyn erupted suddenly, gesturing wildly to the room around them. "And like the once-prey now-predator he is, the vampire wants to control the object of his fear. That's why he's been chasing the cuckoo." She looked down at the child, "This is what his fear looks like. He's afraid."

Negaduck rolled his eyes. "It just looks like a scrawny kid to me."

"Try for a little bit of imagination, Negaduck. A vampire wouldn't be after a cuckoo unless he had some sort of ultimate Ramrod power." Gosalyn knelt down in front of the child. "It's bound to be something huge and big to be able to scare an evil old vampire."  
Negaduck rolled his eyes. "Great so we've moved on from Ninja cuckoo to ultimate Ramrod powered Ninja cuckoo."  
"It certainly seems that way."

"So if this guy is all that then why is he running?"  
Gosalyn stood up and turned to Negaduck. "Because some big moron created an army of zombie vampires and sicked them on him. That's why."  
Negaduck paused, thinking back over all the stuff that Darkwing had told him. "He's some big moron only in your universe, right?"  
"Right. As I said at the beginning of this exercise: 'Not your problem, Negaduck'."

Negaduck folded his arms. "So that just leaves your Queen of the Negaverse script left to deal with."  
"Right." Gosalyn answered with a satisfied grin.


	15. The Play Off

**The Play Off**

* * *

The vampire's study with the green carpet and red-haired duckling fractured into pieces and taking its place was the stadium's interior again. This time instead of a set, it was the full surround view.

_The Friendly Four, Steelbeak and Hooter stood about the room drinking cups of coffee in slow motion._

Negaduck shook his head, "What are we, in different time zones?"  
"Thought zone, I thought I explained that." Darkwing Duck stood by him with the lecture ready.  
"Oh, right." Negaduck replied. "But they're thinking too."  
"Yes, but we can't see that. How long does it take you to think about getting a coffee and how long does it actually take to do it?"  
"So we're waiting around for them to spoon sugar."  
"Exactly."  
"This is moronic." Negaduck stated.

"It's all a matter of perspective, Negaduck."  
Negaduck looked at the very tempting surround view. "So I can't interact with them."  
"Still in my head, remember."  
"Right…" Negaduck stepped up to Liquidator nearby. He put his hand out and pushed through the watery dog. "He's not even wet."  
"Actually he is wet, but you, being the barest spark of thought that you are, can't feel on their dimension."

* * *

_"Director Hooter."_

_Negaduck spun around as Steelbeak quite unexpectedly started talking behind him._

_"I'm getting this funny feeling like you're upset at me about something. Although I can't reckon on what that is."_

_Hooter turned around. A few moments later he answered, "You seemed a trifle upset at me just now as well."__  
_"I'm sure you know why." Steelbeak frowned._  
_"It escapes me entirely."_  
_"You were pestering me about that last guy." Steelbeak stated curtly._  
_"I assure you I was not." Hooter paused for several moments.__

"Pester!" Dark Duck said to himself in some personal irritation. "Let's see you try to-!" He sighed, "Never mind."

_"… And what of the incident with Negaduck?" Hooter at last said.__  
_"Say what?" Steelbeak asked._  
_"Was it your contrivance to set me against Gosalyn?"_  
_"Yeah? And why would I do that?" Steelbeak retorted hotly, "You were the one wanting to off him."_  
_"But did you not?"_  
_"No, I just wanted him out of my way!" Steelbeak answered plainly. "Sure he was making my life hard sometimes but that was just him being annoying."_  
_"This is puzzling." Hooter paused again in thought.__

"Annoying!" Negaduck exclaimed, "I'll show you who's annoying!" With a swing, Negaduck's fist passed straight through Steelbeak's head.  
"Cool off, Ducky, this is Steelbeak, after all." Dark Duck said kindly. "Annoyed is as bad as it gets for him. You should be flattered."  
Negaduck gritted his teeth. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. You dishing out that charity routine beats anything these guys could throw up hands down."

_"It was far too easy" Hooter mused._

"Oh, I don't know, Negaduck," Darkwing said from behind Negaduck, "this conversation of theirs seems pretty dull to me."  
Negaduck privately agreed. "I kind of liked that mansion place we busted into. What say we go back and dust vampire zero?" Negaduck suggested hopefully.  
"But we can't kill vampire zero!" Darkwing snapped back, "There are minions and defence-barriers-and-reasons-and-weaknesses-and-consequences and if we're not careful whatever-we-dish-out-can-come-back-in-a-double-serve!"  
Negaduck paused. "Sheesh. Anyone who didn't know you would think you were procrastinating."  
Dark Duck glared at him. "Compared to the safety of my family everything else is a frivolous pursuit."  
"You're a real killjoy, Darkwing."  
"Yeah, well, being the opposite of you, I shouldn't wonder." The vampire grunted dismissively.

* * *

_Negaduck turned around and saw Gosalyn in her pink and vanilla dress coming in through the stone door. Accompanying her was Launchpad who closed the door behind her._

"Is that your fantasy Gosalyn coming in or my real one?"  
"She's so real you can't even talk to her."  
Negaduck glared at Darkwing, "I still reckon I have something to tattle to your Hooter about wrongful imprisonment."  
"Wrong? I believe he would say 'well done'."  
"Oh, right, because I'm usually a criminal." Negaduck scowled.  
"A hardened-..."

_"Gosalyn, what do you think so far of your suitors?" Quackerjack asked, interrupting Dark Duck's reply._  
_"I'm finding this all really very hard." Gosalyn answered as she sat down on the big chair up near the back of the room. "Some of them had very little to say. And that big tall one called Dan. I don't think he likes me so I don't know why he's here."__  
_"But you haven't even talked to each other yet." Quackerjack reminded her._  
_"But you talked to him for me. I don't want him here any more."__

"Yes!" Negaduck exclaimed, "I got something through her head at last!"  
"I assure you, Negaduck;" Darkwing told him, "Your Gosalyn listened to every word you've ever said."

_Steelbeak moved across to Gosalyn. "What about the cattle farmer?"__  
_"He's a bit scary. I don't know how strong he is though. He could be a whole bunch of hot air. Why is Honker here? Is it because he wants to rule St Canard?"__

"No, yes..." Darkwing answered from beside Negaduck; "Excellent question."

_"That could be the reason for all of them." Megavolt pointed out._

"It could be but it's no-ot." Darkwing sang.  
Negaduck turned around, "Will you cut that out?" He demanded loudly, "I hate it when you do that!"  
"You know you're asking me to stop thinking while you're in my head, Ducky. You don't suppose that might be kind of risky?"  
Negaduck growled, "Whatever if it'll just stop you doing that sing-song voice again."

* * *

_The door opened and one of the suitors barging in._

"Unbelievable; your universe," Darkwing stated, "They have a whole new stadium to play in and they-."

_The cattle farmer strode in and stopped three metres in front of Gosalyn. "There you are, Gosalyn."__  
_"It's not_ __midnight__." Steelbeak interjected, stepping protectively to stand beside Gosalyn's chair.__  
_"It's dark isn't it? It's been dark for a while and it'll be dark for a while to come; that sounds like_ __midnight__to me."_

"Loosen up, Bushy." Darkwing commented behind Negaduck. "He's just a Negaverse cattle farmer. It's my universe that he's the Ninja cuckoo."

On Darkwing's words, Negaduck thought to see what Bushroot was seeing. He crossed over to Bushroot's vantage point beside Gosalyn on her chair and took in the same view. There was a wicked gleam in the fox's eye, a spectral tint, intelligence, predatory, cunning. This vampire was looking straight at Negaduck's Gosalyn.

"No you don't!" Negaduck jumped him before he'd even thought about the stupidity of it.

* * *

Instead of passing through like before, Negaduck's fist made contact and the vampire staggered back in surprise. Negaduck grabbed back for his stake but the vampire was faster and grabbed Negaduck by the cuff of his cape.

"Boss!" Launchpad exclaimed unhelpfully. "Look out!"

"How dare you!" The vampire roared, his teeth sliding out.  
"Practice, that's how." Darkwing said from behind the vampire and yanked him far away from Negaduck. "And exactly the right amount of empty-headedness."

Sidelined from the fight, Negaduck looked back to check on Gosalyn. "You seem okay, kid."  
"Oh, daddy!" She said with relief on her face and got up from her chair, just short of giving him a bone-crushing hug. "You're alive!"

There was a cackle across the room and Negaduck looked between the people to see the cattle farmer free of Darkwing again. "I win." He declared, turned to a vapour cloud, and vanished.

Negaduck jerked around, looking for where the suitor would pop up.

He didn't.

"He's gone," Darkwing announced in a guilty tone, "you ... may have been right. This time. Negaduck."

Negaduck's feathers prickled as he worked to remember all the messed up stuff in Dark Duck's head. Standing in front of the chair, Gosalyn was rubbing her arms as though she'd just caught a chill.

"Gosalyn, did you just ... lay an egg?"

"Uh, yeah." She bent down and picked up the blue-green egg she'd just laid and looked at it.  
For a moment Negaduck stared at the egg in his ward's hand and decided on the solution to the matter. "It's easy enough to fix; just smash it."  
"No!" Gosalyn hugged the egg closely to protect it. "Please."

Negaduck turned around and glared at Dark Duck. "Darkwing, you buffoon; look at the side effect of 'your' moronic plan."  
The vampire smiled with his manic sweetness at him, "But I got a mouthful of blood out of it; would you like me to share it with you?"  
"Ew; no!" Negaduck replied feeling sick to his stomach; he reached for his chainsaw and started it up.  
With a chuckle Darkwing matched his glare with a playful grin. "See you later, Negaduck. Have fun at midnight."

* * *

His vampire double finally vanished and Negaduck felt himself a free agent once more. He looked around at the others. "You guys got a problem with me being here?" Negaduck challenged the various faces, threateningly.  
"No." Bushroot answered soberly, turning his head to Steelbeak. "Steelbeak, you were right all along. I couldn't see the impact of what I was doing until it was too late."  
Hooter agreed. "I should say I've learnt my lesson too." Hooter smiled at Negaduck. "I resolve to be more resourceful in stopping you in the future." With that the Friendly Four, Hooter and Steelbeak vanished into thin air.

When Negaduck turned back, his daughter was still nursing her egg.  
Gosalyn caught his gaze and her bottom beak trembled. "Dad ..."  
After a final thought on the matter, Negaduck made a decision and put his chainsaw away. She hadn't hugged him and that was nice. "You know, Darkwing was saying how in his universe someone was thinking that egg was the key to something pretty big and destructive."

"It's just my egg to me." Gosalyn replied plainly.  
Negaduck shrugged, "It looks like that to me too, kid. But you know; if it does ever live up to all the hype, well, it ought to be some fun." He sat down on the chair with a laugh.

* * *

**The End ... _(__Sort of...)_**


End file.
